SOMEHOW 
GOOD 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


JOSEPH  VANCE 

A  novel  of  life  near  London  in  the  50's. 
$1.75. 

"The  best  thing  in  fiction  since  Mr.  Meredith  and 
Mr.  Hardy  ;  must  take  its  place,  by  virtue  of  its  tender- 
ness and  pathos,  its  wit  and  humor,  its  love  of  human 
kind,  and  its  virile  characterization,  as  the  first  great 
English  novel  that  has  appeared  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury."—LEWIS  MELVILLE  inJfew  York  Times  Saturday 
Review. 

"If  the  reader  likes  both  'David  Copperfleld'  and 
'  Peter  Ibbetson  '  he  can  find  the  two  books  in  this 
one."—  The  Independent. 

ALICE -FOR-SHORT 

The  story  of  a  London  waif,  a  friendly 
artist,  his  friends  and  family,  with  some  de- 
cidedly dramatic  happenings.  $1.75. 

"  Really  worth  reading  and  praising.  ...  If  any 
writer  of  the  present  era  is  read  a  half  century  hence,  a 
quarter  century,  or  even  a  decade,  that  writer  is  Wil- 
liam De  Morgan."— Boston  Transcript. 

"  It  is  the  Victorian  ape  itself  that  speaks  in  these 
rich,  interesting,  overcrowded  books.  .  .  .  Every- 
where are  wit,  learning  and  scholarship.  .  .  .  Will  be 
remembered  as  Dickens's  novels  are  remembered." 
—Springfield  Republican. 

HENRY    HOLT   AND    COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


SOMEHOW    GOOD 


BY 
WILLIAM   DE  MORGAN 

AUTHOR  OF  "JOSEPH  VANCE" 
AND  "ALICE-FOR-SHOBT" 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1908 


COPYRIGHT,  1908, 

BY 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


Published  February,  1908 


D 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

A  BETUBNED  TBAVELLEB.  NEMESIS  IN  LIVEBMOBE'S  BENTS,  1808.  EX- 
TBAVAGANCE,  AND  NO  CASH.  A  PAWNED  WATCH,  AND  A  BESI- 
DUUM  OF  FOUBPENCE 1 

CHAPTER  II. 

A  JOUBNET  IN  THE  TWOPENNY  TUBE.  A  VEBY  NICE  GIBL,  AND  A  NE- 
GOTIATION. AN  EXPOSED  WIBE,  AND  AN  ELECTBOCUTION  .  .  10 

CHAPTER  III. 

KBAKATOA  VILLA,  AND  HOW  THE  ELECTROCUTED  TBAVELLEB  WENT 
THEBE  IN  A  CAB.  A  CUBIOU8  WELCOME  TO  A  PEBFECT  STBANGEB. 
THE  STBANGEB'S  LABEL.  A  CANCELLED  MEMOBY.  BACK  LIKE  A 

BAD    SHII. 1. INc, 16 

CHAPTER  IV. 

HOW  THE  STBANGEB  STOPPED  ON  AT  KBAKATOA  VILLA.  OF  THE 
FBEAK8  OF  AN  EXTINGUISHED  MEMOBY.  OF  HOW  THE  STBANGEB 
GOT  A  GOOD  APPOINTMENT,  BUT  NONE  COULD  SAY  WHO  HE  WAS, 
NOB  WHENCE 35 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE   CHBISTMA8   AFTEB.      OF  THE   CHUBCH   OF   ST.   SATISFAX,   AND   A 

YOUNG  IDIOT  WHO  CAME  THEBE 44 

CHAPTER  VI. 

OF  BOXING  DAY  MOBNINO  AT  KBAKATOA  VILLA,  AND  WHAT  OBSEBVANT 

CBEATUBES    FOSSILS    ABE          .  ....         53 

CHAPTER  VII. 

CONCEBNING  PEOPLE'S  PASTS,  AND  THE  SEPABATION  OF  THE  SHEEP 
FBOM  THE  GOATS.  OF  YET  ANOTHEB  MA  JOB,  AND  HOW  HE  GOS- 
SIPPED  AT  HUBKABU  CLUB.  SOME  TBUSTWOBTHY  INFOBMATION 
ABOUT  AN  ALLEGED  DIVOBCE  .  60 


48^14 


ENT.TMU 


iv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

PAGE 

THE  ANTECEDENTS  OF  ROSALIND  NIGHTINGALE,  SALLY'S  MOTHER. 
HOW  BOTH  CAME  FROM  INDIA  TO  ENGLAND,  AND  TOOK  A  VILLA  ON 
A  REPAIRING  LEASE.  SOMEWHAT  OF  SALLY'S  UPBRINGING.  SOME 
MORE  ROPER  GOSSIP,  AND  A  CAT  LET  OUT  OF  A  BAG.  A  PIECE  OF 
PRESENCE  OF  MIND  ........  68 

CHAPTER  IX. 

HOW  THOSE  GIRLS  DO  CHATTER  OVER  THEIR  MUSIC !  MRS.  NIGHTIN- 
GALE'S RESOLUTION.  BUT,  THE  RISK!  A  HARD  PART  TO  PLAY. 
THERE  WAS  ONLY  MAMMA  FOR  THE  GIRL'.  THE  GARDEN  OF  LONG 
AGO  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .82 

CHAPTER  X. 

THE  DANGERS  OF  AN  UNKNOWN  PAST.  NETTLE-GRASPING,  AND  A  RE- 
CURRENCE. WHO  AMONG  US  COURTS  CATECHISM  ABOUT  HIM- 
SELF? A  UNIVERSALLY  PROVIDED  YOUNG  MAN.  HOW  ABOUT  THE 
POOR  OLD  FURNITURE  ?  .  .  .•'...  .  .95 

CHAPTER  XI. 

MORE  GIRLS'  CHATTER.  SWEEPS  AND  DUSTMEN.  HOW  SALLY  DIS- 
ILLUSIONED MR.  BRADSHAW.  OUT  OF  THE  FRYING-PAN  .  .105 

CHAPTER  XII. 

WHAT  FENWICK  AND  SALLY'S  MOTHER  HAD  BEEN  SAYING  IN  THE 
BACK  DRAWING-ROOM.  OP.  999.  BACK  IN  THAT  OLD  GARDEN 
AGAIN,  AND  HOW  GERRY  COULD  NOT  SWIM.  THE  OLD  TARTINI 
SONATA .  .  .  113 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

OF    A    SLEEPLESS    NIGHT    MRS.    NIGHTINGALE    HAD,    AND    HOW    SALLY 

WOKE   UP   AND   TALKED  . 131 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

HOW  MILLAIS'  "HUGUENOT"  CAME  OF  A  WALK  IN  THE  BACK  GARDEN. 

AND  HOW  FENWICK  VERY  NEARLY  KISSED  SALLY       .         .         .     139 

CHAPTER  XV. 

CONCERNING  DR.  VEREKEH  AND  HIS  MAMMA,  WHO  HAD  KNOWN  IT  AT 
ALONG.      HOW   SALLY   LUNCHED   WITH   THE   SALES   WILSONS,   A.. 
GOT  SPECULATING  ABOUT  HER  FATHER.    HOW  TISHY  LET  OUT  ABOUT 
MAJOR  ROPER.     HOW  THERE  WAS  A  WEDDING      .  .  .  .150 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

OF  A  WEDDING-PARTY  AND  AN  OLD  MAN'S  RETROSPECT.  A  HOPE  OF 
RETRIBUTIVE  JUSTICE  HEREAFTER.  CHARLEY'S  AUNT,  AND 


CONTENTS  v 

PAGE 

PYRAMUS  AND  THI8BE.     HOW  SALLY  TRIED  TO  PUMP  THE  COLONEL 
AND  GOT  HALF  A  BUCKETFUL 166 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

SALLY'S  LABK.    AND  HOW  SHE  TOOK  HEB  MEDICAL  ADVISEE  INTO  HEB 

CONFIDENCE  AFTEB  DIVINE  SERVICE         .....     178 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

OF  A  SWIMMING-BATH,  "ET  PB-ETEREA  EXIGUUM"     ....       186 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

HOW    FENWICK    KNEW    ALL    ABOUT    THE    MASS.       AND    HOW    BABON 

KREUTZKAMMEB   RECOGNISED    MB.    HARBISSON.      LONDON    AGAIN!       191 

CHAPTER  XX. 

MERE  DAILY  LIFE  AT  KBAKATOA.  BUT  SALLY  IS  QUITE  FENWICK's 
DAUGHTER  BY  NOW.  OF  HER  VIEWS  ABOUT  DR.  VEREKEB,  AND  OF 
TISHY'S  AUNT  FRANCES 203 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

OF  JULIUS  BBADSHAW'S  INNER  SOUL.  AND  OF  THE  HABERDASHEB 
BATTLE  AT  LADBROKE  GROVE  ROAD.  ON  CARPET-STRETCHING,  AND 
VACCINATION  FROM  THE  CALF.  AN  AFTER-DINNER  INTERVIEW, 
AND  GOOD  RESOLUTIONS.  EVASIVE  TRAPPISTS  .  .  .217 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

IT  WAS  THAT  MRS.  NIGHTINGALE'S  FAULT.  A  SATISFACTORY  CHAP, 
GERRY!  A  TELEGRAM  AND  A  CLOUD.  BRONCHITIS  AND  ASTHMA 
AND  FOG.  SALLY  GOES  TO  MAYFAIR.  THE  OLD  SOLDIER  HAS  NO- 
TICE TO  QUIT  .........  236 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

OF  A  FOG  THAT  WAS  UP-TO-DATE,  AND  HOW  A  FIRE-ENGINE  RELIEVED 
SALLY  FROM  A  BOY.  HOW  SALLY  GOT  IN  AT  A  GENTLEMEN'S 
CLUB,  AND  HOW  VETERANS  COULD  RECOLLECT  HER  FATHER.  BUT 
THEY  KNOW  WHAT  SHE  CAN  BE  TOLD,  AND  WHAT  SHE  CAN'T. 

1W  MAJOB  BOPER  WOULD  GO  OUT  IN  THE  FOG  .  .  .       245 

Off 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

HOW  MAJOR  ROPER  MET  THAT  BOY,  AND  GOT  UPSTAIRS  AT  BALL 
STREET.  AN  INTERVIEW  BETWEEN  ASTHMA  AND  BRONCHITIS. 
HOW  SALLY  PINIONED  THE  PURPLE  VETERAN,  AND  THERE  WAS  NO 
BOY.  HOW  THE  GOVERNOR  DONE  HOARCKIN',  AM)  GOT  QUALIFIED 
FOR  A  SUBJECT  OF  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  ....  260 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

PAGE 

ABOUT  SIX  MONTHS,  AND  HOW  A  CABMAN  SAW  A  GHOST.  OF  SALLY'S 
AND  THE  DOCTOR'S  "MODUS  VIVENDI,"  AND  THE  SHOOSMITH 
FAMILY.  HOW  SALLY  MADE  TEA  FOB  BUDDHA,  AND  HOW  BUDDHA 
FORESAW  A  STEPDAUGHTER.  DELIRIUM  THEMENS  .  .  .  283 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

MORNING  AT  LADBROKE  GROVE  ROAD,  AND  FAMILY  DISSENSION.  FAC- 
CIOLATI,  AND  A  LEGACY.  THE  LAST  CONCERT  THIS  SEASON.  THE 
GOODY  WILL  COME  TO  IGGULDEN'S.  BUT  FANCY  PROSY  IN  LOVE!  300 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

ST.  SENNANS-ON-SEA.  MISS  GWENDOLEN  ARKWRIGHT.  WOULD  ANT 
OTHER  CHILD  HAVE  BEEN  SALLY?  HOW  MRS.  IGGULDEN'S  COUSIN 
SOLOMON  SURRENDERED  HIS  COUCH  .  .  '  .  .  .  310 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

HOW  SALLY  PUT  THE  FINISHING  TOUCH  ON  THE  DOCTOR,  WHO 
COULDN'T  SLEEP.  OF  THE  GRAND  DUKE  OF  HESSE-JUNKERSTADT. 
AND  OF  AN  INTERVIEW  OVERHEARD  .  .  ,  .  .  323 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

OF  A  MARRIAGE  BY  SPECIAL  LICENCE.  ROSALIND'S  COMPARISONS.  OF 
THE  THREE  BRIDESMAIDS,  AND  HOW  THE  BRIDE  WAS  A  GOOD 
SAILOR  ,  .  .  . 331 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

HOW  A  FORTNIGHT  PASSED,  AND  THE  HONEYMOONERS  RETURNED.  OF 
A  CHAT  ON  THE  BEACH,  AND  MISS  ARKWHIGHT's  SCIENTIFIC 
EXPERIENCE.  ALMOST  THE  LAST,  LAST,  LAST — MAN'S  HEAD !  .  337 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

HOW  SALLY  DIDN'T  CONFESS  ABOUT  THE  DOCTOR,  AND  JEREMIAH  CAME 

TO  ST.  SENNANS  ONCE  MORE          .     •"'•«;  •'  .         .         .     349 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 

HOW  8ALIY  DIVED  OFF  THE  BOAT,  AND  SHOCKED  THE  BEACH.  OF 
THE  SENSITIVE  DELICACY  OF  THE  OCTOPUS.  AND  OF  DR.  EVERETT 
GAYLEB'S  OPINIONS  ...  .  .  .  ...  .  357 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

OF  AN  INTERMITTENT  CURRENT  AT  THE  PIER-END,  AND  OF  DOLLY'S 
FORTITUDE.  HOW  FENWICK  PUT  HIS  HEAD  IN  THE  JAWS  OF  THE 
FUTURE  UNAWARES,  AND  PROSY  DIDN'T  COME.  HOW  SALLY  AND 
HER  STEP  SAW  PUNCH,  AND  OF  A  THIN  END  OF  A  FATAL  WEDGE. 
BUT  ROSALIND  SAW  NO  COMING  CLOUD  .  366 


CONTENTS  vii 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

PAGE 

OF  THE  REV.  SAMUEt,  HERBICK  AND  A  SUNSET.  THE  WEDGE'S  PROG- 
RESS. THE  BARON  AGAIN,  AND  THE  FLY-WHEEL.  HOW  FEN- 
WICK  KNEW  HIS  NAME  RIGHT,  AND  ROSALIND  DIDN'T.  HOW 
SALLY  AND  HER  MEDICAL  ADVISER  WERE  NOT  QUITE  WET 
THROUGH.  HOW  HE  HAD  MADE  HER  THE  CONFIDANTE  OF  A  LOVE- 
AFFAIR.  OF  A  GOOD  OPENING  IN  SPECIALISM.  MORE  PROGRESS  OF 
THE  WEDGE.  HOW  GERRY  NEARLY  MADE  DINNER  LATE  .'  .  377 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 

HOW  A  STONE  THROWN  DROVE  THE  WEDGE  FURTHER  YET.  OF  A  TER- 
RIBLE NIGHT  IN  A  BIG  GALE,  AND  A  DOOR  THAT  SLAMMED.  THE 
WEDGE  WELL  IN  .........  392 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

HOW  FENWICK  AND  VEREKER  WENT  FOR  A  WALK,  AND  MORE  MEM- 
ORIES CAME  BACK.  HOW  FENWICK  WAS  A  MILLIONAIRE,  OR 
THEREABOUTS.  OF  A  CLUE  THAT  KILLED  ITSELF.  HARRISSON'S 
AFFAIR  NOW!  BOTHER  THE  MILLIONS!  IS  NOT  LOVE  BETTER 
THAN  MONEY?  ONLY  FEXWICK's  NAME  WASN'T  HARRISSON 
NEITHER 399 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

OF  THE  DOCTOR'S  CAUTIOUS  RESERVE,  AND  MRS.  FENWICK's  STRONG 
COMMON-SENSE.  AND  OF  A  LADY  AT  BUDA-PESTH.  HOW  HAR- 
RISSON WAS  ONLY  PAST  FORGOTTEN  NEWSPAPERS  TO  DR.  VEREKER. 
OF  THE  OCTOPUS'S  PULSE.  HOW  THE  HABERDASHER'S  BRIDE 
WOULD  TRY  ON  AT  TWO  GUA8.  A  WEEK,  AND  OF  A  PLEASANT 
WALK  BACK  FROM  THE  RAILWAY  STATION 410 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

OF  AN  EXPEDITION  AGAINST  A  GOODY,  AND  THE  WALK  BACK  TO  LOB- 
JOIT'S.  AND  THE  WALK  BACK  AGAIN  TO  IGGULDEN'S.  HOW 
FENWICK  TOOK  VEREKER'S  CONFIDENCE  BY  STORM.  OF  A  COLLIER 
THAT  PUT  TO  SEA.  SUCCESSFUL  AMBUSCADE  OF  THE  OCTOPUS. 
PROVISIONAL  EQUILIBRIUM  OF  KKXWICK'S  MIND.  WHY  BOTHER 
ABOUT  HORACE?  WHY  NOT  ABOUT  PICKWICK  JUST  AS  MUCH? 
THE  KITTEN  WASN'T  THERE — CERTAINLY  NOT!  .  .  .  431 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

HOW  MEMORY  CREPT  BACK  AND  BACK,  AND  FENWICK  KEPT  HIS  OWN 
COUNSEL.  ROSALIND  NEED  NEVER  KNOW  IT.  OF  A  JOLLY  BIG 
BLOB  OF  MELTED  CANDLE,  AND  SALLY'S  HALF-BROTHER.  OF  FSN- 
WICK'S  IMPROVED  GOOD  SPIRITS  443 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XL. 

PAGE 

BATHING  WEATHER  AGAIN,  AND  A  LETTER  FROM  TISHY  BRADSHAW. 
THE  TRIUMPH  OF  ORPHEUS.  BUT  WAS  IT  EURYDICE  OR  THE 
LITTLE  BATTERY?  THE  REV.  MR.  HERRICK.  OF  A  REVERIE  UNDER 
A  BATHING-MACHINE,  AND  OF  GWENDOLEN'S  MAMMA'S  CON- 
NECTING-LINK. OF  DR.  CONRAD'S  MAMMA'S  DONKEY-CHAIR,  AND 
HIS  GREAT-AUNT  ELIZA.  HOW  SALLY  AND  HE  STARTED  FOR 
THEIR  LAST  WALK  AT  ST.  SENNANS  .....  457 

CHAPTER  XLL 

OF  LOVE,  CONSIDERED  AS  A  THUNDERSTORM,  AND  OF  AGUR,  THE  SON 
OF  JAKEH  (PROV.  XXX.).  OF  A  COUNTRY  WALK  AND  A  JUDI- 
CIOUSLY RESTORED  CHURCH.  OF  TWO  CLASPED  HANDS,  AND  THEIR 
CONSEQUENCES.  NOTHING  SO  VERY  REMARKABLE  AFTER  ALL!  471 

CHAPTER  XLII. 

OF  A  RECURRENCE  FROM  "AS  YOU  LIKE  IT,"  AND  HOW  FENWICK  DIDN'T. 
WHY  A  SAILOR  WOULD  NOT  LEARN  TO  SWIM.  THE  BARON  AGAIN. 
OF  A  CUTTLE-FISH  AND  HIS  SQUIRT.  OF  THE  POWER  OF  A  PRIORI 
REASONING.  OF  SALLY'S  CONFESSION,  AND  HOW  FENWICK  WENT 
TO  A  FIRST-CLASS  HOTEL  .......  489 

CHAPTER  XLIII. 

OF  AN  OBSERVANT  AND  THOUGHTFUL,  BUT  SNIFFY,  WAITER;  AND 
HOW  HE  OPENED  A  NEW  BOTTLE  OF  COGNAC.  HOW  THE  BARON 
SAW  FENWICK  HOME,  WITHOUT  HIS  HAT.  AN  OLD  MEMORY 
FROM  ROSALIND'S  PAST  AND  HIS.  AND  THEN  FACE  TO  FACE  WITH 
THE  WHOLE.  SLEEP  UPON  IT!  BUT  WHAT  BECAME  OF  HIS  HOR- 
RIBLE BABY?  .........  498 

CHAPTER  XLIV. 

OF  A  CONTRACT  JOB  FOR  REPAIRS.  HOW  FENWICK  HAD  ANOTHER 
SLEEPLESS  NIGHT  AFTER  ALL.  WHICH  IS  WHICH,  NOW  OR 
TWENTY  ODD  YEARS  AGO  ?  HOW  SALLY  FOLLOWED  JEREMIAH  OUT. 
WHAT  A  LOT  OF  TALK  ABOUT  A  LIFE-BELT!  .  .  .513 

CHAPTER  XLV. 

OF  CONBADE  VEBEKER'S  REVISION  OF  PARADISE,  AND  OF  FENWICK'S 
HIGH  FEVER.  OF  AN  ENGLISH  OFFICER  WHO  WAVERED  AT  BOM- 
BAY, AND  OF  FENWICK'S  SURPRISE-BATH  IN  THE  BRITISH  CHAN- 
NEL. WHY  HE  DID  NOT  SINK.  THE  "ELLEN  JANE"  OF  ST.  SEN- 
NANS.  ONLY  SALLY  IS  IN  THE  WATER  STILL.  MORE  BOATS. 
FOUND!  524 


CONTENTS  ix 

CHAPTER  XLVI. 

PAGE 

AN  ERRAND  IN  VAIN,  AND  HOW  DR.  CONRAD  CAME  TO  KNOW.  CON- 
CERNING LLOYD'S  COFFEE-HOUSE,  AND  THE  BATTLE  OF  CAMPEB- 
DOWN.  MABSHALL  HALL'S  SYSTEM  AND  SILVESTER'S.  SOCIAL 
DISADVANTAGES.  A  CHAT  WITH  A  CENTENARIAN,  AND  HOW 
ROSALIND  CAME  TO  KNOW.  THOMAS  LOCOCK  OF  ROCHESTER. 
ONE  O'CLOCK! 531 

CHAPTER  XLVII. 

WAS  IT  THE  LITTLE  GALVANIC  BATTERY?  THE  LAST  CHAPTER  RETOLD 
BY  THE  PRESS.  A  PROPER  RAILING.  BUT  THEY  WEREN'T 
DROWNED.  WHAT'S  THE  FUSS?  MASTER  CHANCELLORSHIP  AP- 
PEARS AND  VANISHES.  ELECTUARY  OF  ST.  SENNA.  AT  GEORGI- 
ANA  TERRACE.  A  LETTER  FROM  SALLY.  ANOTHER  FROM  CONRAD. 
EVERYTHING  VANISHES!  .  554 


SOMEHOW  GOOD 


SOMEHOW   GOOD 

CHAPTER  I 

A  RETURNED  TRAVELLER.  NEMESIS  IN  LFVERMORE's  RENTS,  1808.  EX- 
TRAVAGANCE, AND  NO  CASH.  A  PAWNED  WATCH,  AND  A  RESIDUUM 
OF  FOURPENCE 

AN  exceptionally  well-built  man  in  a  blue  serge  suit  walked 
into  a  bank  in  the  City,  and,  handing  his  card  across  the  counter, 
asked  if  credit  had  been  wired  for  him  from  New  York.  The 
clerk  to  whom  he  spoke  would  inquire. 

As  he  leaned  on  the  counter,  waiting  for  the  reply,  his  appear- 
ance was  that  of  a  man  just  off  a  sea  voyage,  wearing  a  suit  of 
clothes  well  knocked  about  in  a  short  time,  but  quite  untainted 
by  London  dirt.  His  get-up  conveyed  no  information  about  his 
social  position  or  means.  His  garments  had  been  made  for  him ; 
that  was  all  that  could  be  said.  That  is  something  to  know. 
But  it  leaves  the  question  open  whether  their  wearer  is  really  only 
a  person  in  decent  circumstances — one  decent  circumstance,  at 
any  rate — or  a  Duke. 

The  trustworthy  young  gentleman  in  spectacles  who  came 
back  from  an  authority  in  the  bush  to  tell  him  that  no  credit  had 
been  wired  so  far,  did  not  seem  to  find  any  difficulty  in  affecting 
confidence  that  the  ultimate  advent  of  this  wire  was  an  intrinsic 
certainty,  like  the  post.  Scarcely,  perhaps,  the  respectable  con- 
fidence he  would  have  shown  to  a  real  silk  hat — for  the  appli- 
cant's was  mere  soft  felt,  though  it  looked  new,  for  that  matter 
— and  a  real  clean  shirt,  one  inclusive  of  its  own  collar  and  cuffs. 
Our  friend's  answered  this  description;  but  then,  it  was  blue. 
However,  the  confidence  would  have  wavered  under  an  indepen- 
dent collar  and  wristbands.  Cohesiveness  in  such  a  garment 
means  that  its  wearer  may  be  an  original  genius:  compositeness 
may  mean  that  he  has  to  economize,  like  us. 


2  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Did  you  expect  it  so  early  as  this?"  says  the  trustworthy 
young  gentleman,  smiling  sweetly  through  his  spectacles.  "It 
isn't  ten  o'clock  yet."  But  he  only  says  this  to  show  his  con- 
fidence, don't  you  see?  Because  his  remark  is  in  its  nature 
meaningless,  as  there  is  no  time  of  day  telegrams  have  a  penchant 
for.  No  doubt  there  is  a  time — perhaps  even  times  and  half-a- 
time — when  you  cannot  send  them.  But  there  is  no  time  when 
they  may  not  arrive.  Except  the  smallest  hours  of  the  morning, 
which  are  too  small  to  count. 

"I  don't  think  I  did,"  replies  the  applicant.  "I  don't  think 
I  thought  about  it.  I  wired  them  yesterday  from  Liverpool, 
when  I  left  the  boat,  say  four  o'clock." 

"Ah,  then  of  course  it's  a  little  too  early.  It  may  not  come 
till  late  in  the  afternoon.  It  depends  on  the  load  on  the  wires. 
Could  you  call  in  again — well,  a  little  before  our  closing  time  ?" 

"All  right."  The  speaker  took  out  a  little  purse  or  pocket- 
book,  and  looked  in  it.  "I  thought  so,"  said  he;  "that  was  my 
last  card."  But  the  clerk  had  left  it  in  the  inner  sanctum.  He 
would  get  it,  and  disappeared  to  do  so.  When  he  came  back 
with  it,  however,  he  found  its  owner  had  gone,  saying  never  mind, 
it  didn't  matter. 

"Chap  seems  in  a  great  hurry !"  said  he  to  his  neighbour  clerk. 
"What's  he  got  that  great  big  ring  on  his  thumb  for  ?"  And  the 
other  replying:  "Don't  you  know  'em — rheumatic  rings?"  he 
added:  "Doesn't  look  a  rheumatic  customer,  anyhow!"  And 
then  both  of  them  pinned  up  cheques,  and  made  double  entries. 

The  chap  didn't  seem  in  a  great  hurry  as  he  sauntered  away 
along  Cornhill,  looking  in  at  the  shop-windows.  He  gave  the 
idea  of  a  chap  with  a  fine  June  day  before  him  in  London,  with 
a  plethora  of  choices  of  what  to  do  and  where  to  go.  Also  of 
being  keenly  interested  in  everything,  like  a  chap  that  had  not 
been  in  London  for  a  long  time.  After  watching  the  action  of  a 
noiseless  new  petroleum  engine  longer  than  its  monotonous  idea 
of  life  seemed  to  warrant,  he  told  a  hansom  to  take  him  to  the 
Tower,  for  which  service  he  paid  a  careless  two  shillings.  The 
driver  showed  discipline,  and  concealed  his  emotions.  He  wasn't 
going  to  let  out  that  it  was  a  double  fare,  and  impair  a  fountain 
of  wealth  for  other  charioteers  to  come.  Not  he ! 

The  fare  enjoyed  himself  evidently  at  the  Tower.     He  saw 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  3 

everything  he  could  be  admitted  to — the  Beauchamp  Tower  for 
sixpence,  and  the  Jewel-house  for  sixpence.  And  he  gave  un- 
called-for gratuities.  When  he  had  thoroughly  enjoyed  all  the 
dungeons  and  all  the  torture-relics,  and  all  the  memories  of 
Harrison  Ainsworth's  romance,  read  in  youth  and  never  for- 
gotten, he  told  another  hansom  to  drive  him  across  the  Tower 
Bridge,  and  not  go  too  fast. 

As  he  crossed  the  Bridge  he  looked  at  his  watch.  It  was  half- 
past  twelve.  He  would  have  time  to  get  back  before  half-past 
one  to  a  restaurant  he  had  made  a  mental  note  of  near  the  Bank, 
and  still  to  allow  the  cabby  to  drive  on  a  bit  through  the  trans- 
pontine and  interesting  regions  of  Rotherhithe  and  Cherry  Gar- 
den Pier.  It  was  so  unlike  anything  he  had  been  seeing  lately. 
None  the  worse  for  the  latter,  in  some  respects.  So,  at  least, 
thought  the  fare. 

For  he  had  the  good,  or  ill,  fortune  to  strike  on  a  rich  vein  of 
so-called  life  in  a  London  slum.  Shrieks  of  fury,  terror,  pain 
were  coming  out  of  an  archway  that  led,  said  an  inscription, 
into  Livermore's  Rents,  1808.  Public  opinion,  outside  those 
Rents,  ascribed  them  to  the  fact  that  Salter  had  been  drinking. 
He  was  on  to  that  pore  wife  of  his  again,  like  last  week.  Half 
killed  her,  he  did,  then!  But  he  was  a  bad  man  to  deal  with, 
and  public  opinion  wouldn't  go  down  that  court  if  I  was  you. 

"But  you're  not,  you  see !"  said  the  fare,  who  had  sought  this 
information.  "You  stop  here,  my  lad,  till  I  come  back."  This 
to  the  cabman,  who  sees  him,  not  without  misgivings  about  a 
source  of  income,  plunge  into  the  filthy  and  degraded  throng 
that  is  filling  the  court,  and  elbow  his  way  to  the  scene  of  excite- 
ment. 

""He's  all  right !"  said  that  cabby.  "I'll  put  a  tenner  on  him, 
any  Sunday  morning" — a  figure  of  speech  we  cannot  explain. 

From  his  elevation  above  the  crowd  he  can  see  a  good  deal  of 
what  goes  on,  and  guess  the  rest.  Of  what  he  hears,  no  phrase 
could  be  written  without  blanks  few  readers  could  fill  in,  and  for 
the  meaning  of  which  no  equivalent  can  even  be  hinted.  The 
actual  substance  of  the  occurrence,  that  filters  through  the 
cries  of  panic  and  of  some  woman  or  child,  or  both,  in  agony, 
the  brutal  bellowings  and  threats  of  a  predominant  drunken 
lout,  presumably  Mr.  Salter,  the  incessant  appeals  to  God  and 


4  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Christ  by  terrified  women,  and  the  rhetorical  use  of  the  names 
of  both  by  the  men,  with  the  frequent  suggestion  that  some  one 
else  should  go  for  the  police — this  actual  substance  may  be  drily 
stated  thus:  Mr.  Salter,  a  plumber  by  trade,  but  at  present  out 
of  work,  had  given  way  to  ennui,  and  to  relieve  it  had  for  two 
days  past  been  beating  and  otherwise  maltreating  his  daughter, 
aged  fourteen,  and  had  threatened  the  life  of  her  mother  for 
endeavouring  to  protect  her.  At  the  moment  when  he  comes 
into  this  story  (as  a  mere  passing  event  we  shall  soon  forget 
without  regret)  he  is  engaged  in  the  fulfilment  of  a  previous 
promise  to  his  unhappy  wife — a  promise  we  cannot  transcribe 
literally,  because  of  the  free  employment  of  a  popular  adjective 
(supposed  to  be  a  corruption  of  "by  Our  Lady")  before  or  after 
any  part  of  speech  whatever,  as  an  expletive  to  drive  home  mean- 
ing to  reluctant  minds.  It  is  an  expression  unwelcome  on  the 
drawing-room  table.  But,  briefly,  what  Mr.  Salter  had  so  sworn 
to  do  was  to  twist  his  wife's  nose  off  with  his  finger  and  thumb. 
And  he  did  not  seem  unlikely  to  carry  out  his  threat,  as  Liver- 
more's  tenantry  lacked  spirit  or  will  to  interpose,  and  did  noth- 
ing but  shriek  in  panic  when  feminine,  and  show  discretion 
when  masculine;  mostly  affecting  indifference,  and  saying  they 
warn't  any  good,  them  Salters.  The  result  seemed  likely  to  turn 
on  whether  the  victim's  back  hair  would  endure  the  tension  as 
a  fulcrum,  or  would  come  rippin'  out  like  so  much  grarse. 

"Let  go  of  her !"  half  bellows,  half  shrieks  her  legal  possessor, 
in  answer  to  a  peremptory  summons.  "Not  for  a  swiney,  soap- 
eatin'  Apoarstle — not  for  a  rotten  parson's  egg,  like  you.  Not 
f or  a  .  .  ." 

But  the  defiance  is  cut  short  by  a  blow  like  the  kick  of  a  horse, 
that  lands  fairly  on  the  eye-socket  with  a  cracking  concussion 
that  can  be  heard  above  the  tumult,  and  is  followed  by  a  roar  of 
delight  from  the  male  vermin,  who  see  all  the  joys  before  them 
of  battle  unshared  and  dangerless — the  joys  bystanders  feel  in 
foemen  worthy  of  each  other's  steel,  and  open  to  be  made  the 
subject  of  wagers. 

The  fare  rejects  all  offers  to  hold  his  coat,  but  throws  his  felt 
hat  to  a  boy  to  hold.  Self-elected  seconds  make  a  kind  of  show 
of  getting  a  clear  space.  No  idea  of  assisting  in  the  suppression 
of  a  dangerous  drunken  savage  seems  to  suggest  itself — nothing 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  5 

but  what  is  called  "seeing  fair."  This  is,  to  wit,  letting  him 
loose  on  even  terms  on  the  only  man  who  has  had  the  courage  to 
intervene  between  him  and  his  victim.  Let  us  charitably  suppose 
that  this  is  done  in  the  hope  that  it  means  prompt  and  tremen- 
dous punishment  before  the  arrival  of  the  police.  The  cabman 
sees  enough  from  his  raised  perch  to  justify  his  anticipating  this 
with  confidence.  He  can  just  distinguish  in  the  crowd  Mr. 
Salter's  first  rush  for  revenge  and  its  consequences.  "He's  got 
it !"  is  his  comment. 

Then  he  hears  the  voice  of  his  fare  ring  out  clear  in  a  lull — 
such  a  one  as  often  comes  in  the  tense  excitement  of  a  fight. 
"Give  him  a  minute.  .  .  .  Now  stick  him  up  again!"  and  then 
is  aware  that  Mr.  Salter  has  been  replaced  on  his  legs,  and  is 
trying  to  get  at  his  antagonist,  and  cannot.  "He's  playin'  with 
him!"  is  his  comment  this  time.  But  he  does  not  play  with 
him  long,  for  a  swift  finale  comes  to  the  performance,  perhaps 
consequent  on  a  cry  that  heralds  a  policeman.  It  causes  a  splen- 
did excitement  in  that  cabman,  who  gets  as  high  as  he  can,  to 
miss  none  of  it.  "That's  your  sort !"  he  shouts,  quite  wild  with 
delight.  "That's  the  style!  Foller  on!  Foller  on!"  And 
then,  subsiding  into  his  seat  with  intense  satisfaction,  "Done 
his  job,  anyhow!  Hope  he'll  be  out  of  bed  in  a  week!" — the 
last  with  an  insincere  affectation  of  sympathy  for  the  defeated 
combatant. 

The  fare  comes  quickly  along  the  court  and  out  at  the  entry, 
whose  occupants  the  cabman  flicks  aside  with  his  whip  sugges- 
tively. "Let  the  gentleman  come,  can't  you !"  he  shouts  at  them. 
They  let  him  come.  "Be  off  sharp !"  he  says  to  the  cabby,  who 
replies,  "Right  you  are,  governor !"  and  is  off,  sharp.  Only  just 
in  time  to  avoid  three  policemen,  who  dive  into  Livennore's 
Rents,  and  possibly  convey  Mr.  Salter  to  the  nearest  hospital. 
Of  all  that  this  story  knows  no  more ;  Mr.  Salter  goes  out  of  it. 

The  fare,  who  seems  very  little  discomposed,  speaks  through 
the  little  trap  to  his  Jehu.  "I  never  got  my  new  hat  again,"  he 
says.  "You  must  drive  back;  there  won't  be  any  decent  hatter 
here." 

"Ask  your  pardon,  sir — the  Bridge  is  histed.  Vessel  coming 
through — string  of  vessels  with  a  tug-boat." 

"Oh,  well,  get  back  to  the  Bank — anywhere — the  nearest  way 


6  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

you  can."  And  after  a  mysterious  short  cut  through  narrow 
ways  that  recall  old  London,  some  still  paved  with  cobbles,  past 
lofty  wharves  or  warehouses  daring  men  lean  from  the  floors  of 
at  dizzy  heights,  and  capture  bales  for,  that  seem  afloat  in  the 
atmosphere  till  one  detects  the  thread  that  holds  them  to  their 
crane  above — under  unexplained  rialtos  and  over  inexplicable 
iron  incidents  in  paving  that  ring  suddenly  and  waggle  under- 
foot— the  cab  finds  its  way  across  London  Bridge,  and  back  to  a 
region  where  you  can  buy  anything,  from  penny  puzzles  to  shares 
in  the  power  of  Niagara,  if  you  can  pay  for  them. 

Our  cab-fare,  when  he  called  out,  "Hold  hard  here !"  opposite 
to  a  promising  hat-shop,  seemed  to  be  in  doubt  of  being  able  to 
pay  for  something  very  much  cheaper  than  Niagara.  He  took 
out  his  purse,  still  sitting  in  the  cab,  and  found  in  it  only  a  sover- 
eign, apparently.  He  felt  in  his  pockets.  Nothing  there  be- 
yond five  shillings  and  some  coppers.  He  could  manage  well 
enough — so  his  face  and  a  slight  nod  seemed  to  say — till  he  went 
back  to  the  Bank  after  lunch.  And  so,  no  doubt,  he  would  have 
done  had  he  been  content  with  a  common  human  billycock  or 
bowler,  like  the  former  one,  at  four-and-six.  But  man  is  born  to 
give  way  to  temptation  in  shops.  No  doubt  you  have  noticed 
the  curious  fact  that  when  you  go  into  a  shop  you  always  spend 
more — more  than  you  mean  to,  more  than  you  want  to,  more  than 
you've  got — one  or  other  of  them — but  always  more. 

Inside  the  shop,  billycocks  in  tissue-paper  came  out  of  band- 
boxes, and  then  out  of  tissue-paper.  But,  short  of  eight  shillings, 
they  betrayed  a  plebeian  nature,  and  lacked  charm.  Now,  those 
beautiful  white  real  panamas,  at  twenty-two  shillings,  were  ex- 
actly the  thing  for  this  hot  weather,  especially  the  one  the  fare 
tried  on.  His  rich  brown  hair,  that  wanted  cutting,  told  well 
against  the  warm  straw-white.  He  looked  handsome  in  it,  with 
those  strong  cheek-bones  and  bronzed  throat  Mr.  Salter  would 
have  been  so  glad  to  get  at.  He  paid  for  it,  saying  never  mind 
the  receipt,  and  then  went  out  to  pay  the  cabby,  who  respectfully 
hoped  he  didn't  see  him  any  the  worse  for  that  little  affair  over 
the  water. 

"None  the  worse,  thank  you!  Shan't  be  sorry  for  lunch, 
though."  Then,  as  he  stands  with  three  shillings  in  his  hand, 
waiting  for  a  recipient  hand  to  come  down  from  above,  he  adds : 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  7 

"A  very  one-sided  affair !  Did  you  hear  what  he  said  about  his 
daughter?  That  was  why  I  finished  him  so  thoroughly." 

"No,  sir,  I  did  not  hear  it.  But  he  was  good  for  the  gruel  he's 
got,  Lord  bless  you !  without  that.  ...  I  ask  your  pardon,  sir 
— no !  Not  from  a  gentleman  like  you !  Couldn't  think  of  it ! 
Couldn't  think  of  it !"  And  with  a  sudden  whip-lash,  and  a  curt 
hint  to  his  horse,  that  cabman  drove  off  unpaid.  The  other  took 
out  a  pencil,  and  wrote  the  number  of  the  cab  on  his  blue  wrist- 
band, close  to  a  little  red  spot — Mr.  Salter's  blood  probably. 
When  he  had  done  this  he  turned  towards  the  restaurant  he  had 
taken  note  of.  But  he  seemed  embarrassed  about  finances — at 
least,  about  the  three  shillings  the  cabby  had  refused;  for  he 
kept  them  in  his  hand  as  if  he  didn't  know  what  to  do  with  them. 
He  walked  on  until  he  came  to  a  hidden  haven  of  silence  some 
plane-trees  and  a  Church  were  enjoying  unmolested,  and  notic- 
ing there  a  box  with  a  slot,  and  the  word  "Contributions"  on  it, 
dropped  the  three  shillings  in  without  more  ado,  and  passed  on. 
But  he  had  no  intention  of  lunching  on  the  small  sum  he  had  left. 

An  inquiry  of  a  City  policeman  guided  him  to  a  pawnbroker's 
shop.  What  would  the  pawnbroker  lend  him  on  that — his 
watch?  Fifteen  shillings  would  do  quite  well.  That  was  his 
reply  to  an  offer  to  advance  that  sum,  if  he  was  going  to  leave 
the  chain  as  well.  It  was  worth  more,  but  it  would  be  all  safe 
till  he  came  for  it,  at  any  rate.  "You'll  find  it  here,  any  time 
up  to  twelve  months,"  said  the  pawnbroker,  who  also  nodded 
after  him  knowingly  as  he  left  the  shop.  "Coming  back  for  it  in 
a  week,  of  course !  All  of  'em  are.  Name  of  Smith,  as  usual ! 
Most  of  'em  are."  Yet  this  man's  honouring  Mr.  Smith  with  a 
comment  looked  as  if  he  thought  him  unlike  "most  of  'em."  He 
never  indulged  in  reflections  on  the  ruck — be  sure  of  that ! 

Mr.  Smith,  if  that  was  his  name,  didn't  seem  uneasy.  He 
found  his  way  to  his  restaurant  and  ordered  a  very  good  lunch 
and  a  bottle  of  Perrier-Jouet — not  a  half-bottle;  he  certainly 
was  extravagant.  He  took  his  time  over  both,  also  a  nap ;  then, 
waking,  felt  for  his  watch  and  remembered  he  had  pawned  it; 
looked  at  the  clock  and  stretched  himself,  and  called  for  his  bill 
and  paid  it.  Most  likely  the  wire  had  come  to  the  Bank  by  now ; 
anyhow,  there  was  no  harm  in  walking  round  to  see.  If  it 
wasn't  there  he  would  go  back  to  the  hotel  at  Kensington  where 


8  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

he  had  left  his  luggage,  and  come  back  to-morrow.  It  was  a 
bore.  Perhaps  they  would  let  him  have  a  cheque-book,  and  save 
his  having  to  come  again.  Much  of  this  is  surmise,  but  a  good 
deal  was  the  substance  of  remarks  made  in  fragments  of 
soliloquy.  Their  maker  gave  the  waiter  sixpence  and  left  the 
restaurant  with  three  shillings  in  his  pocket,  lighting  a  cigar  as 
he  walked  out  into  the  street. 

He  kept  to  the  narrow  ways  and  little  courts,  wondering  at 
the  odd  corners  Time  seems  to  have  forgotten  about,  and  Change 
to  have  deserted  as  unworthy  of  her  notice;  every  door  of  every 
house  an  extract  from  a  commercial  directory,  mixed  and  made 
unalphabetical  by  the  extractor;  every  square  foot  of  flooring 
wanted  for  Negotiation  to  stand  upon,  and  Transactions  to  be 
carried  out  over.  No  room  here  for  anything  else,  thought  the 
smoker,  as,  after  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  saunter,  he  threw  away 
the  end  of  his  cigar.  But  his  conclusion  was  premature.  For 
lo  and  behold ! — there,  in  a  strange  little  wedge-shaped  corner, 
of  all  things  in  the  world,  a  barber's  shop;  maybe  a  relic  of  the 
days  of  Ben  Jonson  or  earlier — how  could  a  mere  loafer  tell? 
Anyhow,  his  hair  wanted  cutting  sufficiently  to  give  him  an 
excuse  to  see  the  old  place  inside.  He  went  in  and  had  his  hair 
cut — but  under  special  .reservation;  not  too  much!  The  hair- 
dresser was  compliant;  but,  said  he,  regretfully:  "You  do  your 
'ed,  sir,  less  than  justice."  Its  owner  took  his  residuum  of 
change  from  his  pocket,  and  carelessly  spent  all  but  a  few  coppers 
on  professional  remuneration  and  a  large  bottle  of  eau-de- 
Cologne.  Perhaps  the  reflection  that  he  could  cab  all  the  way 
back  to  the  hotel  had  something  to  do  with  this  easy-going  way  of 
courting  an  empty  pocket. 

When  he  got  to  the  Bank  another  young  gentleman,  with  no 
spectacles  this  time,  said  he  didn't  know  if  any  credit  was  wired. 
He  was  very  preoccupied,  pinning  up  cheques  and  initialling 
some  important  customer's  paying-in  book.  But  lie  would  in- 
quire in  a  moment,  if  you  would  wait.  And  did  so,  with  no 
result;  merely  expression  of  abstract  certainty  that  it  was  sure 
to  come.  There  was  still  an  hour — over  an  hour — before  closing 
time,  said  he  to  a  bag  with  five  pounds  of  silver  in  it,  unsympa- 
thetically.  If  you  could  make  it  convenient  to  look  in  in  an 
hour,  probably  we  should  have  received  it.  The  person  ad- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  9 

dressed  but  not  looked  at  might  do  so — wouldn't  commit  himself 
— and  went  away. 

The  question  seemed  to  be  how  to  while  away  that  hour. 
Well ! — there  was  the  Twopenny  Tube.  At  that  time  it  was 
new,  and  an  excitement.  Our  friend  had  exactly  fourpence  in 
his  pocket.  That  would  take  him  to  anywhere  and  back  before 
the  Bank  closed.  And  also  he  could  put  some  of  that  eau-de- 
Cologne  on  his  face  and  hands.  He  had  on  him  still  a  sense  of 
the  foulness  of  Livermore's  Rents  and  wanted  something  to 
counteract  it.  Eau-de-Cologne  is  a  great  sweetener. 


CHAPTEE  II 

A  JOURNEY  IN  THE  TWOPENNY  TUBE.      A  VERY  NICE  GIRL,  AND  A  NEGO- 
TIATION.     AN   EXPOSED   WIRE,    AND   AN    ELECTROCUTION 

HE  took  his  fare  in  the  Twopenny  Tube.  It  was  the  last  two- 
pence but  one  that  he  had  in  his  pocket.  Something  fascinated 
him  in  the  idea  of  commanding,  in  exchange  for  that  twopence, 
the  power  of  alighting  at  any  point  between  Cheapside  and  Shep- 
herd's Bush.  Which  should  it  be? 

If  he  could  only  make  up  his  mind  to  not  alighting  at  Chan- 
cery Lane,  he  would  have  two  whole  minutes  for  consideration. 
If  British  Museum  he  would  have  four.  If  Tottenham  Court 
Road,  six — and  so  on.  For  the  time  being  he  was  a  sort  of 
monarch,  in  a  small  way,  over  Time  and  Space.  He  would  go  on 
to  the  Museum,  at  any  rate. 

What  little  things  life  hangs  on,  sometimes!  If  he  had 
foolishly  got  out  at  either  Chancery  Lane  or  British  Museum, 
there  either  would  have  been  no  reason  for  writing  this  story; 
or,  if  written,  it  would  have  been  quite  different.  For  at  the 
Museum  Station  a  girl  got  into  the  carriage;  and,  passing  him 
on  her  way  to  a  central  haven  of  rest,  trod  on  his  foot,  with 
severity.  It  hurt,  so  palpably,  that  the  girl  begged  his  pardon. 
She  was  a  nice  girl,  and  sorry. 

He  forgave  her  because  she  was  a  nice  girl,  with  beautiful  rows 
of  teeth  and  merry  eyebrows.  He  might  have  forgiven  her  if 
she  had  been  a  dowdy.  But  he  liked  forgiving  those  teeth,  and 
those  eyebrows. 

So  when  she  sat  down  in  the  haven,  close  to  his  left  shoulder, 
he  wasn't  sorry  that  his  remark  that  he  ought  to  beg  her  pardon, 
because  it  was  all  his  fault  for  sticking  out,  overlapped  her 
coming  to  an  anchor.  If  it  had  been  got  through  quicker,  the 
incident  would  have  been  regarded  as  closed.  As  it  was,  the  fag- 
end  of  it  was  unexhausted,  and  she  didn't  quite  catch  the  whole. 
It  was  in  no  way  unnatural  that  she  should  turn  her  head 

10 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  11 

slightly,  and  say :  "I  beg  your  pardon."  Absolute  silence  would 
have  been  almost  discourteous,  after  plunging  on  to  what  might 
have  been  a  bad  corn. 

"I  only  meant  it  was  my  fault  for  jamming  up  the  whole 
gangway." 

"Oh  yes — but  it  was  my  fault  all  the  same — for — for " 

"Yes — I  beg  your  pardon  ?    You  were  going  to  say — for ?" 

"Well — I  mean — for  standing  on  it  so  long,  then!  If  you 
had  called  out — but  indeed  I  didn't  think  it  was  a  foot.  I 
thought  it  was  something  in  the  electricity." 

Two  things  were  evident.  One  was  that  it  was  perfectly 
impossible  to  be  stiff  and  stodgy  over  it,  and  not  laugh  out.  The 
other,  the  obvious  absurdity  of  imputing  any  sort  of  motive  to 
the  serene  frankness  and  absolute  candour  of  the  speaker.  Any 
sort  of  motive — "of  that  sort" — said  he  to  himself,  without 
further  analysis.  He  threw  himself  into  the  laugh,  without 
attempting  any.  It  disposed  of  the  discussion  of  the  subject, 
but  left  matters  so  that  stolid  silence  would  have  been  priggish. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  not  to  say  another  word  would  almost  have 
amounted  to  an  insinuation  against  the  eyebrows  and  the  teeth. 
He  would  say  one — a  most  impersonal  one. 

"Do  they  stop  at  Bond  Street?" 

"Do  you  want  to  stop  at  Bond  Street  ?" 

"Not  at  all.  I  don't  care  where  I  stop.  I  think  I  meant — 
is  there  a  station  at  Bond  Street  ?" 

"The  station  wasn't  opened  at  first.     But  it's  open  now." 

What  an  irritating  thing  a  conversation  can  be!  Here  was 
this  one,  just  as  one  of  its  constituents  was  beginning  to  wish 
it  to  go  on,  must  needs  exhaust  its  subject  and  confess  that 
artificial  nourishment  was  needed  to  sustain  it.  And  she — (for 
it  was  she,  not  he: — did  you  guess  wrong?) — had  begun  to 
want  to  know,  don't  you  see,  why  the  man  with  the  hair  on  the 
back  of  his  browned  hand  and  the  big  plain  gold  ring  on  his 
thumb  did  not  care  where  he  stopped.  If  he  had  had  a  holiday 
look  about  him  she  might  have  concluded  that  he  was  seeing 
London,  and  then  what  could  be  more  natural  than  to  break 
loose,  as  it  were,  in  the  Twopenny  Tube?  But  in  spite  of  his 
leisurely  look,  he  had  not  in  the  least  the  seeming  of  a  holiday- 
maker.  His  clothes  were  not  right  for  the  part.  What  he  was 


12  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

could  not  be  guessed  without  a  clue,  and  the  conversation  had 
collapsed,  clearly !  It  was  irritating  to  be  gravelled  for  lack  of 
matter — and  he  was  such  a  perfect  stranger!  The  girl  was  a 
reader  of  Shakespeare,  but  she  certainly  didn't  see  her  way  to 
Rosalind's  little  expedient.  "Even  though  my  own  name  is 
Rosalind,"  said  she  to  herself. 

It  was  the  readiness  and  completeness  with  which  the  man 
dropped  the  subject,  and  recoiled  into  himself,  that  gave  the 
girl  courage  to  make  an  attempt  to  satisfy  her  curiosity.  When 
a  man  harks  back,  palpably,  on  some  preoccupation,  after  ex- 
changing a  laugh  and  an  impersonal  word  or  two  with  a  girl  who 
does  not  know  him,  it  is  the  best  confirmation  possible  of  his 
previous  good  faith  in  seeming  more  fatherlike  than  manlike. 
Rosalind  could  risk  it,  surely.  "Very  likely  he  has  a  daughter 
my  age,"  said  she  to  herself.  Then  she  saw  an  opening — the 
thumb-ring. 

"Do  pray  excuse  me  for  asking,  but  do  you  find  it  does  good  ? 
My  mother  was  recommended  to  try  one." 

"This  ring?  It  hasn't  done  me  any  good.  But  then,  I  have 
hardly  anything  the  matter.  I  don't  know  about  other  people. 
I'm  sorry  I  bought  it,  now.  It  cost  four-and-sixpence,  I  think. 
I  would  sooner  have  the  four-and-sixpence.  ...  Yes,  decidedly! 
I  would  sooner  have  the  four-and-sixpence." 

"Can't  you  sell  it?" 

"I  don't  believe  I  could  get  sixpence  for  it." 

"Do  please  excuse  me — I  mean,  excuse  the  liberty  I  take — but 
I  should  so  much  like  to — to  .  .  ." 

"To  buy  it  for  sixpence?  Certainly.  Why  not?  Much 
better  than  paying  four-and-six  for  a  new  one.  Your  mother 
may  find  it  do  her  good.  I  don't  care  about  it,  and  I  really  have 
nothing  the  matter." 

He  drew  the  ring  off  his  thumb,  and  Rosalind  took  it  from 
him.  She  slipped  it  on  her  finger,  over  her  glove.  Naturally 
it  slipped  off — a  man's  thumb-ring!  She  passed  it  up  inside 
the  glove-palm,  through  the  little  slot  above  the  buttons.  Then 
she  got  out  her  purse,  and  looked  in  to  see  what  its  resources 
were. 

"I  have  only  got  half-a-crown,"  said  she.  The  man  flushed 
slightly.  Rosalind  fancied  he  was  angry,  and  had  supposed  she 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  13 

was  offering  beyond  her  bargain,  which  might  have  implied 
liberality,  or  benevolence,  or  something  equally  offensive.  But 
it  wasn't  that  at  all. 

"I  have  no  change,"  said  he.  "Never  mind  about  the  six- 
pence. Send  me  stamps.  I'll  give  you  my  card."  And  then 
he  recollected  he  had  no  card,  and  said  so. 

"It  doesn't  matter  being  very  exact,"  said  she. 

"I  have  no  money  at  all.     Except  twopence." 

Eosalind  hesitated.  This  man  must  be  very  hard  up,  only  he 
certainly  did  not  give  that  impression.  Still,  "no  money  at  all, 
except  twopence !"  Would  it  be  safe  to  try  to  get  the  half-crown 
into  his  pocket?  That  was  what  she  wanted  to  do,  but  felt 
she  might  easily  blunder  over  it.  If  she  was  to  achieve  it,  she 
must  be  quick,  for  the  public  within  hearing  was  already  feeling 
in  its  pocket,  in  order  to  oblige  with  change  for  half-a-crown. 
She  was  quick. 

1  "You  send  it  me  in  stamps,"  she  said,  pressing  the  coin  on 
him.  "Take  it,  and  I'll  get  my  card  for  the  address.  It  will 
be  one-and-eleven  exactly,  because  of  the  postage.  It  ought  to 
be  a  penny  for  stationery,  too.  .  .  .  Oh,  well!  never  mind, 
then.  .  .  ." 

She  had  got  the  card,  and  the  man,  demurring  to  the  stationery 
suggestion,  and,  indeed,  hesitating  whether  to  take  the  coin  at 
all,  looked  at  the  card  with  a  little  surprise  on  his  face.  He 
read  it : 


MRS.    NIGHTINGALE. 
MISS   ROSALIND   NIGHTINGALE. 


KRAKATOA,   OLEXMOIRA  ROAD, 

SHEPHERD'S  BUSH,  w. 


"I'm  not  Mrs.  Nightingale,"  said  the  girl.  "That's  my 
mother." 

"Oh  no !"  said  he.  "It  wasn't  that.  It  was  only  that  I  knew 
the  name  once — years  ago." 


14  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

The  link  in  the  dialogue  here  was  that  she  had  thought  the 
surprise  was  due  to  his  crediting  her  with  matrimony  and  a 
visiting-card  daughter.  She  was  just  thinking  could  she  legiti- 
mately inquire  into  the  previous  Nightingale,  when  he  said  some 
more  of  his  own  accord,  and  saved  her  the  trouble. 

"Rosalind  Nightingale  was  the  name,"  said  he.  "Do  you 
know  any  relation " 

"Only  my  mother,"  answered  the  girl,  surprised.  "She's 
Eosalind,  too,  like  me.  I  mean,  I'm  Rosalind.  I  am  always 
called  Sally,  though." 

The  man  was  going  to  answer  when,  as  luck  would  have  it, 
the  card  slipped  from  his  fingers  and  fluttered  down.  In  pur- 
suing it  he  missed  the  half-crown,  which  the  young  lady  released, 
fancying  he  was  about  to  take  hold  of  it,  and  stooped  to  search 
for  it  where  it  had  rolled  under  the  seat. 

"How  idiotic  of  me !"  said  he. 

"Next  station  Uxbridge  Road,"  thus  the  guard  proclaimed; 
and  then,  seeing  the  exploration  that  was  going  on  after  the  half- 
crown,  he  added:  "I  should  let  it  go  at  that,  mister,  if  I  was 
you." 

The  man  asked  why? 

"There  was  a  party  tried  that  game  last  week.  He's  in  the 
horspital  now."  This  was  portentous  and  enigmatical.  The 
guard  continued :  "If  a  party  gets  electrocuted,  it's  no  concern  of 
the  employees  on  the  line.  It  lies  between  such  parties  and  the 
Company.  I  shouldn't  myself,  if  I  was  you !  But  it's  between 
you  and  the  Company.  I  wash  my  hands." 

"If  the  wires  are  properly  insulated" — this  was  from  an  im- 
portant elderly  gentleman,  of  a  species  invariable  under  the  cir- 
cumstances— "if  the  wires  are  properly  insulated,  there  is  not 
the  slightest  cause  for  apprehension  of  any  sort  or  kind." 

"Very  good!"  said  the  guard  gloomily.  "Then  all  I  say  is, 
insoolate  'em  yourselves.  Don't  try  to  put  it  on  me!  Or 
else  keep  your  hands  well  outside  of  the  circuit."  But  the 
elderly  gentleman  was  not  ready  to  acquiesce  in  the  conditions 
pointed  at. 

"I  repeat,"  said  he,  "that  the  protection  of  the  public  is,  or 
ought  to  be,  amply  secured  by  the  terms  of  the  Company's  char- 
ter. If  any  loophole  exists  for  the  escape  of  the  electric  current, 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  15 

all  I  can  say  is,  the  circumstances  call  for  public  inquiry.  The 
safety  of  the  public  is  the  concern  of  the  authorities." 

"Then/'  said  the  guard  pointedly,  "if  I  was  the  public,  I 
should  put  my  hands  in  my  pocket,  and  not  go  fishing  about  for 
ambiguous  property  in  corners.  There! — what  did  I  tell  you? 
Now  you'll  say  that  was  me,  I  suppose  ?" 

The  thing  that  hadn't  been  the  guard  was  a  sudden  crackle 
that  leaped  out  in  a  blue  flame  under  the  seat  where  the  man's 
hand  was  exploring  for  the  half-crown.  It  was  either  that,  or 
another  like  it,  at  the  man's  heel.  Or  both  together.  A  little 
boy  was  intensely  delighted,  and  wanted  more  of  the  same  sort. 
The  elderly  gentleman  turned  purple  with  indignation,  and 
would  at  once  complain  to  the  authorities.  They  would  take  the 
matter  up,  he  doubted  not.  It  was  a  disgrace,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

Eosalind,  or  Sally,  Nightingale  showed  no  alarm.  Her  merry 
eyebrows  were  as  merry  as  ever,  and  her  smile  was  as  uncon- 
scious a  frame  to  her  pearly  teeth  as  ever,  when  she  turned  to  the 
mother  of  the  delighted  little  boy  and  spoke. 

"There  now !  It's  exactly  like  that  when  I  comb  my  hair  in 
very  dry  weather."  And  the  good  woman  was  able  to  confirm 
this  from  her  own  experience,  narrating  (with  needless  details) 
the  strange  phenomena  attendant  on  the  head  of  a  young  person  in 
quite  a  good  situation  at  Woollamses,  and  really  almost  a  lady, 
stating  several  times  what  she  had  said  to  the  young  person, 
Miss  Ada  Taylor,  and  what  answer  she  had  received.  She 
treated  the  matter  entirely  with  reference  to  the  bearings  of 
the  electric  current  on  questions  of  social  status. 

But  the  man  did  not  move,  remaining  always  with  his  arm 
under  the  seat.  Rosalind,  or  Sally,  thought  he  had  run  the  half- 
crown  home,  but  in  some  fixed  corner  from  which  detachment 
was  for  a  moment  difficult.  Wondering  why  the  moment  should 
last  so  long,  she  spoke. 

"Have  you  got  it  ?"  said  she. 

But  the  man  spoke  never  a  word,  and  remained  quite  still. 


CHAPTER  III 

KRAKATOA  VILLA,  AND  HOW  THE  ELECTROCUTED  TRAVELLER  WENT 
THERE  IN  A  CAB.  A  CURIOUS  WELCOME  TO  A  PERFECT  STRANGER. 
THE  STRANGER'S  LABEL.  A  CANCELLED  MEMORY.  BACK  LIKE  A 
BAD  SHILLING 

KRAKATOA  was  a  semi-detached  villa,  a  few  minutes'  walk 
from  Shepherd's  Bush  Station.  It  looked  like  a  showily  dressed 
wife  of  a  shabby  husband ;  for  the  semi-detached  other  villa  next 
door  had  been  standing  to  let  for  years,  and  its  compo  front  was 
in  a  state  of  decomposition  from  past  frosts,  and  its  paint  was 
parched  and  thin  in  the  glare  of  the  present  June  sun,  and 
peeling  and  dripping  spiritlessly  from  the  closed  shutters  among 
the  dead  flies  behind  the  cracked  panes  of  glass  that  had  quite 
forgotten  the  meaning  of  whitening  and  water,  and  that  wouldn't 
hack  out  easy  by  reason  of  the  putty  having  gone  'ard.  One 
knew  at  a  glance  that  if  the  turncock  was  to  come,  see,  and 
overcome  the  reluctance  of  the  allotted  cock-to-be-turned,  the 
water  would  burst  out  at  every  pore  of  the  service-pipes  in  that 
house,  except  the  taps ;  and  would  know  also  that  the  adept  who 
came  to  soften  their  hearts  and  handles  would  have  to  go  back 
for  his  tools,  and  would  be  a  very  long  time  away. 

Krakatoa,  on  the  other  hand,  was  resplendent  with  stone- 
colour,  and  smelt  strongly  of  it.  And  its  door  you  could  see 
through  the  glass  of  into  the  hall,  when  its  shutters  were  not 
thumb-screwed  up  over  the  panes,  was  painted  a  green  that 
staggered  the  reason,  and  smelt  even  more  strongly  than  the 
stone-colour.  And  all  the  paint  was  so  thick  that  the  headings 
on  the  door  were  dim  memories,  and  all  the  execution  on  the 
sculptured  goblets  on  pedestals  flanking  the  steps  in  the  front 
garden  was  as  good  as  spoiled.  And  the  paint  simmered  in  the 
sun,  and  here  and  there  it  blistered  and  altogether  suggested 
that  Krakatoa,  like  St.  Nicholas,  might  have  halved  its  coats 
with  the  beggar  next  door — given  him,  suppose,  one  flat  and  one 

16 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  17 

round  coat.  Also,  that  either  the  job  had  been  'urried,  and 
not  giv'  proper  time  to  dry,  or  that  the  summer  had  come  too 
soon,  and  we  should  pay  for  it  later  on,  you  see  if  we  didn't ! 

The  coatless  and  woe-begone  villa  next  door  had  almost  lost 
its  name,  so  faded  was  the  lettering  on  the  gate-post  that  was 
putting  out  its  bell-handle  to  the  passer-by,  even  as  the  patient 
puts  out  his  tongue  to  the  doctor.  But  experts  in  palimpsests, 
if  they  had  penetrated  the  superscriptions  in  chalk  and  pencil 
of  idle  authorship,  would  have  found  that  it  was  The  Retreat. 
Probably  this  would  have  been  revealed  even  if  the  texts  had 
been  merely  Bowdlerised  with  Indian-rubber  or  a  sponge,  because 
there  were  a  good  many  objectionable  passages. 

But  The  Retreat  was  a  retreat,  and  smelt  strong  of  the  Hermits, 
who  were  cats.  Krakatoa  was  not  a  volcano,  except  so  far  as 
eruptions  on  the  paint  went.  But  then  it  had  become  Krakatoa 
through  a  mistake ;  for  the  four  coats  of  paint  at  the  end  of  the 
first  seven  years,  as  per  agreement,  having  completely  hidden 
the  first  name,  Saratoga,  and  the  builders'  retention  of  it  having 
been  feeble — possibly  even  affected  by  newspaper  posters,  for  it 
was  not  long  after  the  date  of  the  great  eruption — the  new  name 
had  crept  in  in  the  absence  of  those  who  could  have  corrected  it, 
but  had  gone  to  Brighton  to  get  out  of  the  smell  of  the  paint. 

When  they  returned,  Mr.  Prichard,  the  builder,  though  shocked 
and  hurt  at  the  discovery  that  the  wrong  name  had  been  put  up, 
was  strongly  opposed  to  any  correction  or  alteration,  especially 
as  it  would  always  show  if  altered  back.  You  couldn't  make  a 
job  of  it;  not  to  say  a  proper  job.  Besides,  the  names  were 
morally  the  same,  and  it  was  absurd  to  allow  a  variation  in  the 
letters  to  impose  on  our  imagination.  The  two  names  had  been 
applied  to  very  different  turns-out  abroad,  certainly;  but  then 
they  did  all  sorts  of  things  abroad.  If  Saratoga,  why  not  Kra- 
katoa? Mr.  Prichard  was  entrenched  in  a  stronghold  of  total 
ignorance  of  literary  matters,  and  his  position,  that  mere  dif- 
ferences of  words  ought  not  to  tell  upon  a  healthy  mind,  was 
difficult  to  shake,  especially  as  he  had  the  coign  of  vantage.  He 
had  only  to  remain  inanimate,  and  what  could  a  (presumably) 
widow  lady  with  one  small  daughter  do  against  him  ?  So  at  the 
end  of  the  first  seven  years,  what  had  been  Saratoga  became  Kra- 
katoa, and  remained  so. 


18  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

And  it  was  in  the  back  garden  of  the  again  newly  painted  villa, 
seven  years  later,  that  the  lady  of  the  house,  who  was  watering 
the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  afternoon,  asked  her  excited  daugh- 
ter, who  had  just  come  home  in  a  cab,  what  on  earth  could  have 
prompted  her  to  do  such  a  mad  thing,  such  a  perfectly  insane 
thing !  We  shall  see  what  it  was  immediately. 

"Oh,  Sally,  Sally!"  exclaimed  that  young  person's  still 
young  and  very  handsome  mother.  "What  will  the  child  do 
next?" 

"Oh,  mamma,  mamma !"  answers  Sally,  just  on  the  edge  of  a 
burst  of  tears ;  "what  was  I  to  do  ?  What  could  I  do  ?  It  was 
all  my  fault  from  the  beginning.  You  Tcnow  I  couldn't  leave 
him  to  be  taken  to  the  police-station,  or  the  hospital,  or " 

"Yes,  of  course  you  could !     Why  not  ?" 

"And  not  know  what  became  of  him,  or  anything?  Oh, 
mother !" 

"You  silly  child!  Why  on  earth  couldn't  you  leave  him  to 
the  railway  people  ?" 

"And  run  away  and  leave  him  alone?     Oh,  mother!" 

"But  you  don't  even  know  his  name." 

"Mamma,  dear,  how  should  I  know  his  name?  Don't  you  see, 
it  was  just  like  this."  And  then  Miss  Sally  Nightingale  re- 
peats, briefly  and  rapidly,  for  the  second  time,  the  circumstances 
of  her  interview  in  the  railway-carriage  and  its  tragic  ending. 
Also  their  sequel  on  the  railway  platform,  with  the  partial  re- 
covery of  the  stunned  or -stupefied  man,  his  inability  to  speak 
plainly,  the  unsuccessful  search  in  his  pockets  for  something 
to  identify  him,  and  the  final  decision  to  put  him  in  a  cab  and 
take  him  to  the  workhouse  infirmary,  pending  discovery  of  his 
identity.  The  end  of  her  story  has  a  note  of  relief  in  it : 

"And  it  was  then  I  saw  Dr.  Vereker  on  the  platform." 

"Oh,  you  saw  Dr.  Vereker  ?" 

"Of  course  I  did,  and  he  came  with  me.  He's  always  so  kind, 
you  know,  and  he  knew  the  station  people,  so  .  .  ." 

"Where  is  he  now?" 

"Outside  in  the  cab.  He  stopped  to  see  after  the  man.  We 
couldn't  both  come  away,  so  I  came  to  tell  you." 

"You  stupid  chit !  why  couldn't  you  tell  me  at  first  ?  There, 
don't  cry  and  be  a  goose !" 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  19 

BuJ  Sally  disclaims  all  intention  of  crying.  Her  mother  dis- 
cards the  watering-pot  and  an  apron,  and  suppresses  appearances 
of  gardening;  then  goes  quickly  through  the  house,  passes  down 
the  steps  between  the  scarlet  geraniums  in  the  over-painted 
goblets,  through  the  gate  on  which  Saratoga  ought  to  be,  and 
Krakatoa  is,  written,  and  finds  a  four-wheeled  cab  awaiting 
developments.  One  of  its  occupants  alights  and  meets  her  on 
the  pavement.  A  rapid  colloquy  ensues  in  undertones,  ending 
in  the  slightly  raised  voice  of  the  young  man,  who  is  clearly  Dr. 
Vereker. 

"Of  course,  you're  perfectly  right — perfectly  right.  But 
you'll  have  to  make  my  peace  with  Miss  Sally  for  me." 

"A  chit  of  a  girl  like  that !  Fancy  a  responsible  man  like  you 
letting  himself  be  twisted  round  the  finger  of  a  young  monkey. 
But  you  men  are  all  alike." 

"Well,  you  know,  really,  what  Miss  Sally  said  was  quite  true — 
that  it  was  only  a  step  out  of  the  way  to  call  here.  And  she  had 
got  this  idea  that  it  was  all  her  fault." 

"Was  it?" 

"I  can  only  go  by  what  she  says."  The  girl  comes  into  the 
conversation  through  the  gate.  She  may  perhaps  have  stopped 
for  a  word  or  two  with  cook  and  a  house-and-parlourmaid,  who 
are  deeply  interested,  in  the  rear. 

"It  was  my  fault,"  she  said.  "If  it  hadn't  been  for  me,  it 
would  never  have  happened.  Do  see  how  he  is  now,  Dr. 
Vereker." 

It  is  open  to  surmise  that  the  first  strong  impulse  of  generosity 
having  died  down  under  the  corrective  of  a  mother,  our  young 
lady  is  gradually  seeing  her  way  to  interposing  Dr.  Vereker  as 
a  buffer  between  herself  and  the  subject  of  the  conversation,  for 
she  does  not  go  to  the  cab-door  to  look  in  at  him.  The  doctor 
does.  The  mother  holds  as  aloof  as  possible,  not  to  get  entangled 
into  any  obligations. 

"Get  him  away  to  the  infirmary,  or  the  station  at  once,"  she 
says.  "That's  the  best  thing  to  be  done.  They'll  take  care  of 
him  till  his  friends  come  to  claim  him.  Of  course,  they'll  come. 
They  always  do."  The  doctor  seems  to  share  this  confidence,  or 
affects  to  do  so. 

"Sure  to.     His  friends  or  his  servants,"  says  he.     "But  he 


20  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

can't  give  any  account  of  himself  yet.  Of  course,  I  don't  know 
what  he'll  be  able  to  do  to-morrow  morning." 

He  resumes  his  place  in  the  cab  beside  its  occupant,  who,  ex- 
cept for  an  entire  want  of  animation,  looks  much  like  what  he 
did  in  the  railway-carriage — the  same  strong-looking  man  with 
well-marked  cheek-bones,  very  thick  brown  hair  and  bushy  brows, 
a  skin  rather  tanned,  and  a  scar  on  the  bridge  of  the  nose ;  very 
strong  hands  with  a  tattoo-mark  showing  on  the  wrist  and  an 
abnormal  crop  of  hair  on  the  back,  running  on  to  the  fingers, 
but  flawed  by  a  scar  or  two.  Add  to  this  the  chief  thing  you 
•would  recollect  him  by,  an  Elizabethan  beard,  and  you  will  have 
all  the  particulars  about  him  that  a  navy-blue  serge  suit,  with 
shirt  to  match,  allows  to  be  seen  of  him.  But  you  will  have 
an  impression  that  could  you  see  his  skin  beyond  the  sun-mark 
limit  on  his  hands  and  neck,  you  would  find  it  also  tattooed.  Yet 
you  would  not  at  once  conclude  he  was  a  sailor ;  rather,  your  con- 
clusion might  go  on  other  lines,  but  always  assigning  to  him  a 
rough  adventurous  outdoor  life. 

When  the  doctor  got  into  the  cab  and  shut  the  door  himself, 
he  took  too  much  for  granted.  He  assumed  the  driver,  without 
whom,  if  your  horse  has  no  ambition  at  all  beyond  tranquillity 
and  an  empty  nosebag,  your  condition  is  that  of  one  camping 
out;  or  as  one  in  a  ship  moored  alongside  in  dock,  the  kerb- 
stone playing  the  part  of  the  quay.  Boys  will  then  accumulate, 
and  undervalue  your  appearance  and  belongings.  And  impos- 
sible persons,  with  no  previous  or  subsequent  existence,  will  en- 
deavour to  see  their  way  to  the  establishment  of  a  claim  on  you. 
And  you  will  be  rather  grateful  than  otherwise  that  a  policeman 
without  active  interests  should  accrue,  and  communicate  to  them 
the  virus  of  dispersal,  however  long  its  incubation  may  be.  You 
will  then  probably  do  as  Dr.  Vereker  did,  and  resent  the  driver's 
disappearance.  The  boys,  mysteriously  in  his,  each  other's,  and 
the  policeman's  confidence  (all  to  your  exclusion),  will  be  able  to 
quicken  his  movements,  and  he  will  come  trooping  from  the 
horizon,  on  or  beyond  which  is  Somebody's  Entire. 

All  this  came  to  pass  in  due  course,  and  the  horse,  deprived 
of  his  nosebag,  returned  to  his  professional  obligations.  But  it 
was  a  shabby  horse  in  a  shabby  cab,  to  which  he  imparted  move- 
ment by  falling  forwards  and  saving  himself  just  before  he 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  21 

reached  the  ground.  His  reins  were  visibly  made  good  with 
stout  pack-thread,  and  he  had  a  well-founded  contempt  for  his 
whip,  which  seemed  to  come  to  an  end  too  soon,  and  always  to  hit 
something  wooden  before  it  reached  any  sensitive  part  of  his 
person.  But  he  did  get  off  at  last,  and  showed  that,  as  Force  is 
a  mode  of  motion,  so  Weakness  is  a  mode  of  slowness,  and  one  he 
took  every  advantage  of. 

The  mother  and  daughter  stood  looking  after  the  vanishing 
label,  that  stated  that  the  complication  of  inefficiencies  in  front 
of  it  was  one  of  twelve  thousand  and  odd — pray  Heaven,  more 
competent  ones! — in  the  Metropolis,  and  had  nearly  turned  to 
go  into  the  house,  when  the  very  much  younger  sister  (that  might 
have  been)  addressed  the  very  much,  but  not  impossibly,  older 
one  thus: 

"Mamma,  he  said  he  knew  somebody  of  our  name !" 

"Well,  Miss  Fiddlestick!" — with  an  implication  of  what  of 
that?  Were  there  not  plenty  of  Nightingales  in  the  world? 
Miss  Sally  is  perceptive  about  this. 

"Yes,  but  he  said  Kosalind." 

"Where?" 

"He  didn't  say  where.     That's  all  he  said — Rosalind." 

As  the  two  stand  together  watching  the  retreating  cab  we  are 
able  to  see  that  our  first  impression  of  them,  derived  perhaps 
from  their  relative  ages  only,  was  an  entirely  false  one  as  far  as 
size  went.  The  daughter  is  nearly  as  tall  as  her  mother,  and 
may  end  by  being  as  big  a  woman  when  she  has  completely 
graduated,  taken  her  degree,  in  womanhood.  But  for  all  that 
we,  who  have  looked  at  both  faces,  know  that  when  they  turn 
round  we  shall  see  on  the  shoulders  of  the  one  youth,  inexperi- 
ence, frankness,  and  expectation  of  things  to  come;  on  those  of 
the  other  a  head  that  keeps  all  the  mere  physical  freshness  of  the 
twenties,  if  not  quite  the  bloom  of  the  teens,  but — expressed 
Heaven  knows  how! — experience,  reserve,  and  retrospect  on 
things  that  have  been  once  and  are  not,  and  that  we  have  no 
right  to  assume  to  be  any  concern  of  ours.  Equally  true  of  all 
faces  of  forty,  do  we  understand  you  to  say?  Well,  we  don't 
know  about  that.  It  was  all  very  strong  in  this  face. 

We  can  look  again,  when  they  turn  round.  But  they  don't; 
for  number  twelve  thousand  and  odd  has  come  to  a  standstill, 


22  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

and  its  energumenon  has  come  down  off  its  box,  and  is  "fiddlin5 
at  something  on  the  'orse's  'ed."  So  cook  says,  evidently  not 
impressed  with  that  cab.  The  doctor  looks  out  and  confers ;  then 
gets  out  and  comes  back  towards  the  house.  The  girl  and  her 
mother  walk  to  meet  him. 

"Never  saw  such  a  four-wheeler  in  my  life !  The  harness  is 
tied  up  with  string,  and  the  rein's  broken.  The  idiot  says  if  he 
had  a  stout  bit  of  whipcord,  he  could  make  it  square."  No 
sooner  have  the  words  passed  the  doctor's  lips  than  Miss  Sally  is 
off  on  a  whipcord  quest. 

"I  wish  the  child  wouldn't  always  be  in  such  a  hurry,"  says  her 
mother.  "Now  she  won't  know  where  to  get  it." 

She  calls  after  her  ineffectually.  The  doctor  suggests  that  he 
shall  follow  with  instructions.  Yes,  suppose  he  does?  There 
is  precisely  the  thing  wanted  in  the  left-hand  drawer  of  the  table 
in  the  hall — the  drawer  the  handle  comes  off.  This  seems  un- 
promising, but  the  doctor  goes,  and  transmission  of  messages 
ensues,  heard  within  the  house. 

Left  alone,  Mrs.  Nightingale,  the  elder  Eosalind,  seems  reflec- 
tive. "A  funny  thing,  too!"  she  says  aloud  to  herself.  She  is 
thinking,  clearly,  of  how  this  man  in  the  cab,  who  can't  give  any 
account  of  himself,  once  knew  a  Eosalind  Nightingale. 

Probably  the  handle  has  come  off  the  drawer,  for  they  are  a 
long  time  over  that  string.  Curiosity  has  time  to  work,  and 
has  so  much  effect  that  the  lady  seems  to  determine  that,  after 
all,  she  would  like  to  see  the  man.  Now  that  the  cab  is  so  far 
from  the  door,  even  if  she  spoke  to  him,  she  would  not  stand 
committed  to  anything.  It  is  all  settled,  arranged,  ratified,  that 
he  shall  go  to  the  police-station,  or  the  infirmary,  "or  somewhere." 

When  the  string,  and  Dr.  Vereker,  and  Sally  the  daughter 
come  out  of  the  house,  both  exclaim.  And  the  surprise  they  ex- 
press is  that  the  mother  of  the  latter  should  have  walked  all  the 
way  after  the  cab,  and  should  be  talking  to  the  man  in  it !  It 
is  not  consistent  with  her  previous  attitude. 

"Now,  isn't  that  like  mamma?"  says  Sally.  If  so,  why  be 
BO  astonished  at  it? — is  a  question  that  suggests  itself  to  her 
hearer.  But  self-confutation  is  not  a  disorder  for  his  treatment. 
Besides,  the  doctor  likes  it,  in  this  case.  His  own  surprise  at 
mamma's  conduct  is  unqualified  by  any  intimate  acquaintance 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  23 

with  her  character.  She  may  be  inconsistency  itself,  for  any- 
thing he  knows. 

"Is  she  going  to  turn  the  cab  round  and  bring  him  to  the  house, 
after  all?"  It  looks  like  it 

"I'm  so  glad,"  Sally  replies  to  the  doctor. 

"I  hope  you  won't  repent  it  in  sackcloth  and  ashes." 

"I  shan't.     Why  do  you  think  I  shall  ?" 

"How  do  you  know  you  won't  ?" 

"You'll  see!"  Sally  pinches  her  red  lips  tight  over  her  two 
rows  of  pearls,  and  nods  confirmation.  Her  dark  eyes  look 
merry  under  the  merry  eyebrows,  and  the  lip-pinch  makes  a 
dimple  on  her  chin — a  dimple  to  remember  her  by.  She  is  a 
taking  young  lady,  there  is  no  doubt  of  it.  At  least,  the  doctor 
has  none. 

"Yes,  Sally,  it's  all  quite  right."  Thus  her  mother,  arriving 
a  little  ahead  of  the  returning  cab.  "Now,  don't  dispute  with 
me,  child,  but  do  just  as  I  tell  you.  We'll  have  him  in  the 
breakfast-room;  there's  fewer  steps."  She  seems  to  have  made 
up  her  mind  so  completely  that  neither  of  the  others  interposes 
a  word.  But  she  replies,  moved  by  a  brain-wave,  to  a  question 
that  stirred  in  the  doctor's  mind. 

"Oh  yes;  he  has  spoken.  He  spoke  to  me  just  now.  I'll 
tell  you  presently.  Now  let's  get  him  out.  No,  never  mind 
calling  cook.  You  take  him  on  that  side,  doctor.  .  .  .  That's 
right!" 

And  then  the  man,  whose  name  we  still  do  not  know,  found 
himself  half  supported,  half  standing  alone,  on  the  pavement 
in  front  of  a  little  white  eligible  residence  smelling  of  new  paint. 
He  did  not  the  least  know  what  had  happened.  He  had  only 
a  vague  impression  that  if  some  one  or  something,  he  couldn't 
say  what,  would  only  give  up  hindering  him,  he  would  find  some- 
thing he  was  looking  for.  But  how  could  he  find  it  if  he  didn't 
know  what  it  was?  And  that  he  was  quite  in  the  dark  about. 
The  half-crown  and  the  pretty  girl  who  had  given  it  to  him, 
the  train-guard  and  his  cowardice  about  responsibility,  the  pub- 
lic-spirited gentleman,  the  railway-carriage  itself,  to  say  nothing 
of  all  the  exciting  experiences  of  the  morning — all,  all  had  van- 
ished, leaving  behind  only  the  trace  of  the  impulse  to  search. 
Nothing  else !  He  stood  looking  bewildered,  then  spoke  thickly. 


24  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"I  am  giving  trouble,"  said  he.  Then  the  two  ladies  and  the 
gentleman,  whom  he  saw  dimly  and  did  not  know,  looked  at  one 
another,  each  perhaps  to  see  if  one  of  the  others  would  speak 
first.  In  the  end  the  lady  who  was  a  woman  nodded  to  the  gen- 
tleman to  speak,  and  then  the  lady  who  was  a  girl  confirmed  her 
by  what  was  little  more  than  an  intention  to  nod,  not  quite  un- 
mixed with  a  mischievous  enjoyment  at  the  devolution  of  the  duty 
of  speech  on  the  gentleman.  It  twinkled  in  her  closed  lips.  But 
the  gentleman  didn't  seem  overwhelmed  with  embarrassment. 
He  spoke  as  if  he  was  used  to  things. 

"You  have  had  an  accident,  sir.  ...  On  the  railway.  ...  In 
the  Twopenny  Tube.  .  .  .  Yes,  you'll  remember  all  about  it 
presently.  .  .  .  Yes,  I'm  a  doctor.  .  .  .  Yes,  we  want  you  to 
come  in  and  sit  down  and  rest  till  you're  better.  .  .  .  No,  it 
won't  be  a  long  job.  You'll  soon  come  round.  .  .  .  What  ?  .  .  . 
Oh  no,  no  trouble  at  all !  It's  this  lady's  house,  and  she  wants 
you  to  come  in."  The  speaker  seems  to  guess  at  the  right  mean- 
ings, as  one  guesses  in  the  jaws  of  the  telephone,  perhaps  with 
more  confidence.  But  there  was  but  little  audible  articulation 
on  the  other's  part. 

He  seemed  not  to  want  much  support — chiefly  guidance.  He 
was  taken  down  the  half-dozen  steps  that  flanked  a  grass  slope 
down  to  a  stone  paving,  and  through  a  door  under  the  more 
numerous  steps  he  had  escaped  climbing,  and  into  a  breakfast- 
room  flush  with  the  kitchen,  opening  on  a  small  garden  at  the 
back.  There  was  the  marriage  of  Queen  Victoria  and  Prince 
Albert  over  the  chimney-piece,  and  a  tortoiseshell  cat  with  a  collar 
on  the  oilskin  cover  of  a  square  table,  who  rose  as  though  half 
resenting  strange  visitors ;  then,  after  stretching,  decided  on  some 
haven  less  liable  to  disturbance,  and  went  through  the  window 
to  it  without  effort,  emotion,  or  sound.  There  was  a  clock  under 
a  glass  cover  on  the  chimney-piece  whose  works  you  could  see 
through,  with  a  fascinating  ratchet  movement  of  perfect  grace 
and  punctuality.  Also  a  vertical  orange-yellow  glass  vase, 
twisted  to  a  spiral,  and  full  of  spills.  Also  the  leaning  tower  of 
Pisa,  done  small  in  alabaster.  He  could  see  all  these  things 
quite  plainly,  and  but  that  his  tongue  seemed  to  have  struck 
work,  could  have  described  them.  But  he  could  not  make  him- 
self out,  nor  how  and  why  he  came  to  be  there  at  all.  Where 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  25 

ought  he  to  have  been,  he  asked  himself?  And,  to  his  horror, 
he  could  not  make  that  out  either.  Never  mind.  Patience  was 
the  word,  clearly.  Let  him  shut  his  eyes  as  he  sat  there,  in  the 
little  breakfast-room,  with  the  flies  continually  droning  in  the 
ceiling,  and  an  especially  large  bluebottle  busy  in  the  window, 
who  might  just  as  easily  have  gone  out  and  enjoyed  the  last  hour 
of  a  long  evening  in  a  glorious  sunshine,  but  who  mysteriously 
preferred  to  beat  himself  for  ever  against  a  closed  pane  of  glass, 
a  self-constituted  prisoner  between  it  and  a  gauze  blind — let  him 
shut  his  eyes,  and  try  to  think  out  what  it  all  meant,  what  it  was 
all  about. 

All  that  he  was  perfectly  certain  of,  at  that  moment,  was  that 
he  was  awake,  with  a  contused  pain  all  over,  and  a  very  stiff 
left  hand  and  foot.  And  that,  knowing  he  had  been  insensible, 
he  was  striving  hard  to  remember  what  something  was  that  had 
happened  just  before  he  became  insensible.  He  had  nearly  got 
it,  once  or  twice.  Yes,  now  he  had  got  it,  surely!  No, 
he  hadn't.  It  was  gone  again. 

A  mind  that  is  struggling  to  remember  some  particular  thing 
does  not  deal  with  other  possibilities  of  oblivion.  We  all  know 
the  painful  phenomenon  of  being  perfectly  aware  what  it  is  we 
are  trying  to  remember,  feeling  constantly  close  to  it,  but  always 
failing  to  grasp  it.  We  know  what  it  will  sound  like  when  we 
say  it,  what  it  will  mean,  where  it  was  on  the  page  we  read  it  on. 
Oh  dear  yes ! — quite  plainly.  The  only  thing  we  can't  remember 
for  the  life  of  us  is — what  it  was! 

And  while  we  are  making  stupendous  efforts  to  recapture  some 
such  thing,  does  it  ever  occur  to  any  of  us  to  ask  if  we  may  not 
be  mistaken  in  our  tacit  assumption  that  we  are  quite  certain 
to  remember  everything  else  as  soon  as  we  try?  That,  in  fact, 
it  may  be  our  memory-faculty  itself  that  is  in  fault  and  that  we 
are  only  failing  to  recall  one  thing  because  at  the  moment  it  is 
that  one  sole  thing,  and  no  other,  that  we  are  trying  our  brains 
against. 

It  was  so  in  the  pause  of  a  few  minutes  in  which  this  man  we 
write  of,  left  to  himself  and  the  ticking  of  the  clock,  and  hearing, 
through  the  activity  of  the  bluebottle  and  the  monotony  of  the 
ceiling  flies,  the  murmur  of  a  distant  conversation  between  his 
late  companions,  who  for  the  moment  had  left  him  alone,  tried 


26  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

in  vain  to  recover  his  particular  thread  of  memory,  without  any 
uneasiness  about  the  innumerable  skeins  that  made  up  the  tissue 
of  his  record  of  a  lifetime. 

When  the  young  doctor  returned,  he  found  him  still  seated 
where  he  had  left  him,  one  hand  over  his  eyes,  the  other  on  his 
knee.  As  he  sat — for  the  doctor  watched  him  from  the  door 
for  a  moment — he  moved  and  replaced  either  hand  at  intervals, 
with  implied  distress  in  the  movements.  They  gave  the  im- 
pression of  constant  attempt  constantly  baffled.  The  doctor,  a 
shrewd-seeming  young  man  with  an  attentive  pale  eye,  and  very 
fair  hair,  seemed  to  understand. 

"Let  me  recommend  you  to  be  quiet  and  rest.  Be  quite  quiet. 
You  will  be  all  right  when  you  have  slept  on  it.  Mrs.  Night- 
ingale— that's  the  lady  you  saw  just  now ;  this  is  her  house — will 
see  that  you  are  properly  taken  care  of." 

Then  the  man  tried  to  speak ;  it  was  with  an  effort. 

"I  wish  to  thank — I  must  thank " 

"Never  mind  thanks  yet.  All  in  good  time.  Now,  what  do 
you  think  you  can  take — to  eat  or  drink  ?" 

"Nothing — nothing  to  eat  or  drink." 

"Well,  you  know  best.  However,  there's  tea  coming;  perhaps 
you'll  go  so  far  as  a  cup  of  tea  ?  You  would  be  the  better  for  it." 

Eosalind  junior,  or  Sally,  slept  in  the  back  bedroom  on  the  first- 
floor — that  is  to  say,  if  we  ignore  the  basement  floor  and  call  the 
one  flush  with  the  street-door  step  the  ground-floor.  We  believe 
we  are  right  in  doing  so.  Eosalind  senior,  the  mother,  slept  in 
the  front  one.  It  wasn't  too  late  for  tea,  they  had  decided,  and 
thereupon  they  had  gone  upstairs  to  revise  and  correct. 

After  a  certain  amount  of  slopping  and  splashing  in  the  back 
room,  uncorroborated  by  any  in  the  front,  Sally  called  out  to  her 
mother,  on  the  disjointed  lines  of  talk  in  real  life : 

"I  like  this  soap !  Have  you  a  safety-pin  ?"  Whereto  her 
mother  replied,  speaking  rather  drowsily  and  perfunctorily : 

"Yes,  but  you  must  come  and  get  it." 

"It's  so  nice  and  oily.     It's  not  from  Cattley's?" 

"Yes,  it  is." 

"I  thought  it  was.  Where's  the  pin?"  At  this  point  she 
came  into  her  mother's  room,  covering  her  slightly  retrousse 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  27 

nose  with  her  fresh-washed  hands,  to  enjoy  the  aroma  of  Cattley's 
soap. 

"In  the  little  pink  saucer.     Only  don't  mess  my  things  about." 

"Headache,  mammy  dear?"  For  her  mother  was  lying  back 
on  the  bed,  with  her  eyes  closed.  The  speaker  left  her  hands 
over  her  nostrils  as  she  spoke,  to  do  full  justice  to  the  soap, 
pausing  an  instant  in  her  safety-pin  raid  for  the  answer : 

"I've  been  feeling  the  heat.  It's  nothing.  You  go  down, 
and  I'll  come." 

"Have  some  eau-de-Cologne?"  But,  alas!  there  was  no  eau- 
de-Cologne. 

"Never  mind.  You  go  down,  and  I'll  follow.  I  shall  be  all 
right  after  a  cup  of  tea."  And  Sally,  after  an  intricate  move- 
ment with  a  safety-pin,  an  openwork  lace  cuff  that  has  lost  a 
button,  and  a  white  wrist,  goes  down  three  accelerandos  of  stair- 
lengths,  with  landing  pauses,  and  ends  with  a  dining-room  door 
staccato.  But  she  isn't  long  gone,  for  in  two  minutes  the  door 
reopens,  and  she  comes  upstairs  as  fast,  nearly,  as  she  went  down. 
In  her  hand  she  carries,  visibly,  Johann  Maria  Farina. 

"Where  on  earth  did  you  find  that?"  says  her  mother. 

"The  man  had  it.  Wasn't  it  funny?  He  heard  me  say  to 
Dr.  Vereker  that  I  was  so  sorry  I'd  not  been  able  to  eau-de- 
Cologne  your  forehead,  and  he  began  speaking  and  couldn't  get 
his  words.  Then  he  got  this  out  of  his  pocket.  I  remember  one 
of  the  men  at  the  station  said  something  about  his  having  a  bot- 
tle, but  I  thought  he  meant  a  pocket-flask.  He  looks  the  sort  of 
man  that  would  have  a  pocket-flask  and  earrings." 

Her  mother  doesn't  seem  to  find  this  inexplicable,  nor  to  need 
comment.  Rather  the  contrary.  Sally  dabs  her  brow  with  eau- 
de-Cologne,  beneficially,  for  she  seems  better,  and  says  now  go; 
she  won't  be  above  a  couple  of  minutes.  Nor  is  she,  in  the  sense 
in  which  her  statement  has  been  accepted,  for  she  comes  down- 
stairs within  seven  by  the  clock  with  the  dutiful  ratchet  move- 
ment. 

When  she  came  within  hearing  of  those  in  the  room  below, 
she  heard  a  male  voice  that  was  not  Dr.  Vereker's.  Yes,  the 
man  (whom  we  still  cannot  speak  of  by  a  name)  was  saying 
something — slowly,  perhaps — but  fairly  articulately  and  intel- 


28  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ligibly.  She  went  very  deliberately,  and  listened  in  the  door- 
way. She  looked  very  pale,  and  very  interested — a  face  of  fixed 
attention,  of  absorption  in  something  she  was  irresolute  about, 
rather  than  of  doubt  about  what  she  heard ;  an  expression  rather 
out  of  proportion  to  the  concurrent  facts,  as  we  know  them. 

"What  is  so  strange" — this  is  what  the  man  was  saying,  in 
his  slow  way — "is  that  I  could  find  words  to  tell  you,  if  I  could 
remember  what  it  is  I  have  to  tell.  But  when  I  try  to  bring  it 
back,  my  head  fails.  Tell  me  again,  mademoiselle,  about  the 
railway-carriage."  Sally  wondered  why  she  was  mademoiselle, 
but  recognised  a  tone  of  deference  in  his  use  of  the  word.  She  did 
as  he  asked  her,  slightly  interrupting  her  narrative  to  make  sure 
of  getting  the  tea  made  right  as  she  did  so. 

"I  trod  on  your  foot,  you  know.  (One,  two,  three  spoonfuls.) 
Surely  you  must  remember  that  ?  ( Four,  and  a  little  one  for  the 

Pot.)" 

"I  have  completely  forgotten  it." 

"Then  I  was  sorry,  and  said  I  would  have  come  off  sooner  if 
I  had  known  it  was  a  foot.  You  must  remember  that?"  The 
man  half  smiled  as  he  shook  a  slow-disclaiming  head — one  that 
would  have  remembered  so  gladly,  if  it  could.  "Then,"  con- 
tinues Sally,  "I  saw  your  thumb-ring  for  rheumatism." 

"My  thumb-ring!"  He  presses  his  fingers  over  his  closed 
eyes,  as  though  to  give  Memory  a  better  chance  by  shutting  off 
the  visible  present,  then  withdraws  them.  "No,  I  remember 
no  ring  at  all." 

"How  extraordinary!" 

"I  remember  a  violent  concussion  somewhere — I  can't  say 
where — and  then  finding  myself  in  a  cab,  trying  to  speak  to  a 
lady  whose  face  seemed  familiar  to  me,  but  who  she  could  be  I 
had  not  the  slightest  idea.  Then  I  tried  to  get  out  of  the  cab, 
and  found  I  could  not  move — or  hardly." 

"Look  at  mamma  again!  Here  she  is,  come."  For  Mrs. 
Nightingale  has  come  into  the  room,  looking  white.  "Yes, 
mother  dear,  I  have.  Quite  full  up  to  the  brim.  Only  it  isn't 
ready  to  pour  yet."  This  last  concerns  the  tea. 

Mrs.  Nightingale  moves  round  behind  the  tea-maker,  and 
comes  full-face  in  front  of  her  guest.  One  might  have  fancied 
that  the  hand  that  held  the  pocket-handkerchief  that  caused  the 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  29 

smell  of  eau-de-Cologne  that  came  in  with  her  was  tremulous. 
But  then  that  very  eau-de-Cologne  was  eloquent  about  the  recent 
effect  of  the  heat.  Of  course,  she  was  a  little  upset.  Nothing 
strikes  either  the  doctor  or  Mademoiselle  Sally  as  abnormal  or 
extraordinary.  The  latter  resumes : 

"Surely,  sir!  Oh,  you  must,  you  must  remember  about  the 
name  Nightingale?" 

"This  young  gentleman  said  it  just  now.  Your  name, 
madame  ?" 

"Certainly,  my  name,"  says  the  lady  addressed.  But  Sally 
distinguishes : 

"Yes,  but  I  didn't  mean  that.  I  meant  when  I  took  the  ring 
from  you,  and  was  to  pay  for  it.  Sixpence.  And  you  had  no 
change  for  half-a-crown.  And  then  I  gave  you  my  mother's  card 
to  send  it  to  us  here.  One-and-clevenpence,  because  of  the 
postage.  Why,  surely  you  can  remember  that!"  She  cannot 
bring  herself  to  believe  him.  Dr.  Vereker  does,  though,  and  tells 
him  not  to  try  recollecting;  he  will  only  put  himself  back. 
"Take  the  tea  and  wait  a  bit,"  is  the  doctor's  advice.  For  Miss 
Sally  is  transmitting  a  cup  of  tea  with  studied  equilibrium.  He 
receives  it  absently,  leaving  it  on  the  table. 

"I  do  not  know  if  you  will  know  what  I  mean,"  he  says, 
"but  I  have  a  sort  of  feeling  of — of  being  frightened;  for  I 
have  been  trying  to  remember  things,  and  I  find  I  can  remember 
almost  nothing.  Perhaps  I  should  say  I  cannot  remember  at 
all — can't  do  any  recollecting,  if  you  understand."  Every  one 
can  understand — at  least,  each  says  so.  Sally  goes  on,  half 
sotto  voce:  "You  can  recollect  your  own  name,  I  suppose?"  She 
speaks  half-way  between  soliloquy  and  dialogue.  The  doctor 
throws  in  counsel,  aside,  for  precaution. 

"You'll  only  make  matters  worse,  like  that.  Better  leave  him 
quite  alone." 

But  the  man's  hearing  doesn't  seem  to  have  suffered,  for  he 
catches  the  remark  about  his  name. 

"I  can't  tell,"  he  says.  "I  am  not  so  sure.  Of  course,  I  can't 
have  forgotten  my  own  name,  because  that's  impossible.  I  will 
tell  it  you  in  a  minute.  ...  Oh  dear !  .  .  ." 

The  young  doctor  seemed  to  disapprove  highly  of  these  efforts, 
and  to  wish  to  change  the  conversation.  "Let  it  alone  now," 


30  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

said  he.  "Only  for  a  little.  Would  you  kindly  allow  me  to  see 
your  arm  again?" 

"Let  him  drink  his  tea  first."  This  is  from  Miss  Sally,  the 
tea-priestess.  "Another  cup?"  But  no;  he  won't  take  another 
cup,  thanks. 

"Now  let's  have  the  coat  off,  and  get  another  look  at  the  arm ; 
never  mind  apologizing."  But  the  patient  had  not  contemplated 
apology.  It  was  the  stiffness  made  him  slow.  However,  he  got 
his  coat  off,  and  drew  the  blue  shirt  off  his  left  arm.  He  had  a 
fine  hand  and  arm,  but  the  hand  hung  inanimate,  and  the 
fingers  looked  scorched.  Dr.  Vereker  began  feeling  the  arm  at 
intervals  all  the  way  up,  and  asking  each  time  questions  about 
the  degree  of  sensibility. 

"I  couldn't  say  whether  it's  normal  or  not  up  there."  So  the 
patient  testified.  And  Mrs.  Nightingale,  who  was  watching  the 
examination  intently,  suggested  trying  the  other  arm  in  the 
same  place  for  comparison. 

"You  didn't  see  the  other  arm  at  the  station,  doctor?"  she 
said. 

"Didn't  I?" 

"I  was  asking." 

"Well,  no.  Now  I  come  to  think  of  it,  I  don't  think  I  did. 
We'll  have  a  look  now,  anyhow." 

"You're  a  nice  doctor!"  This  is  from^Miss  Sally;  a  little 
confidential  fling  at  the  profession.  She  is  no  respecter  of  per- 
sons. Her  mother  would,  no  doubt,  check  her — a  pert  little 
monkey! — only  she  is  absorbed  in  the  examination. 

The  doctor,  as  he  ran  back  the  right-arm  sleeve,  uttered  an 
exclamation.  "Why,  my  dear  sir,"  cried  he,  'Tiere  we  have  it ! 
What  more  can  we  want  ?" — and  pointed  at  the  arm.  And  Sally 
said,  as  though  relieved :  "He's  got  his  name  written  on  him  plain 
enough,  anyhow!"  Her  mother  gave  a  sigh  of  relief,  or  some- 
thing like  it,  and  said,  "Yes."  The  patient  himself  seemed  quite 
as  much  perplexed  as  pleased  at  the  discovery,  saying  only,  in  a 
subdued  way :  "It  must  be  my  name."  But  he  did  not  seem  to 
accept  at  all  readily  the  name  tattooed  on  his  arm :  "A.  Fenwick, 
1878." 

"Whose  name  can  it  be  if  it  is  not  yours  ?"  said  Mrs.  Nightin- 
gale. She  fixed  her  eyes  on  his  face,  as  though  to  watch  his 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  31 

effort  of  memory.  "Try  and  think."  But  the  doctor  pro- 
tested. 

"Don't  do  anything  of  the  sort,"  said  he.  "It's  very  bad  for 
him,  Mrs.  Nightingale.  He  mustn't  think.  Just  let  him  rest." 

The  patient,  however,  could  not  resign  himself  without  a 
struggle  to  this  state  of  anonymous  ambiguity.  His  bewilder- 
ment was  painful  to  witness.  "If  it  were  my  name,"  he  said, 
speaking  slowly  and  not  very  clearly,  "surely  it  would  bring 
back  the  first  name.  I  try  to  recall  the  word,  and  the  effort  is 
painful,  and  doesn't  succeed."  His  hostess  seemed  much  in- 
terested, even  to  the  extent  of  ignoring  the  doctor's  injunctions. 

"Very  curious !  If  you  heard  the  name  now,  would  you  recol- 
lect it?" 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  try  these  experiments,"  says  the  doctor. 
"They  won't  do  him  any  good.  Rest's  the  thing." 

"I  think  I  would  rather  try,"  says  Fenwick,  as  we  may  now 
call  him.  "I  will  be  quiet  if  I  can  get  this  right." 

Mrs.  Nightingale  begins  repeating  names  that  begin  with  A. 
"Alfred,  Augustus,  Arthur,  Andrew,  Algernon " 

Fenwick's  face  brightens.  "That's  it!"  says  he.  "Algernon. 
I  knew  it  quite  well  all  the  time,  of  course.  But  I  couldn't — 
couldn't.  .  .  .  However,  I  don't  feel  that  I  shall  make  myself 
understood." 

"I  can't  make  out,"  said  Sally,  "how  you  came  to  remember 
the  bottle  of  eau-de-Cologne." 

"I  did  not  remember  it.  I  do  not  now.  I  mean,  how  it  came 
to  be  in  the  pocket.  I  can  remember  nothing  else  that  was 
there — would  have  been,  that  is.  There  is  nothing  else  there 
now,  except  my  cigar-case  and  a  pocket-book  with  nothing  much 
in  it.  I  can  tell  nothing  about  my  watch.  A  watch  ought  to 
be  there." 

"There,  there!"  says  the  doctor;  "you  will  remember  it  all 
presently.  Do  take  my  advice  and  be  quiet,  and  sit  still  and 
don't  talk." 

But  half  an  hour  or  more  after,  although  he  had  taken  this 
advice,  Fenwick  remembered  nothing,  or  professed  to  have  re- 
membered nothing.  He  seemed,  however,  much  more  collected, 
and  except  on  the  memory-point  nearly  normal. 

When  the  doctor,  looking  at  his  watch,  referred  to  his  obliga- 


32  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

tion  to  keep  another  engagement,  Fenwick  rose,  saying  that  he 
was  now  perfectly  well  able  to  walk,  and  he  would  intrude  no 
longer  on  his  hostesses'  hospitality.  This  would  have  been  per- 
fectly reasonable,  but  for  one  thing.  It  had  come  out  that  his 
pockets  were  empty,  and  he  was  evidently  quite  without  any 
definite  plan  as  to  what  he  should  do  next,  or  where  he  should 
go.  He  was  only  anxious  to  relieve  his  new  friends  of  an  en- 
cumbrance. He  was  evidently  the  sort  of  person  on  whom  the 
character  sat  ill;  one  who  would  always  be  most  at  ease  when 
shifting  for  himself;  such  a  one  as  would  reply  to  any  doubt 
thrown  on  his  power  of  doing  so,  that  he  had  been  in  many  a 
worse  plight  than  this  before.  Yet  you  would  hardly  have 
classed  him  on  that  account  as  an  adventurer,  because  that  term 
implies  unscrupulousness  in  the  way  one  shifts  for  oneself.  His 
face  was  a  perfectly  honourable  one.  It  was  a  face  whose 
strength  did  not  interfere  with  its  refinement,  and  there  was  a 
pleasant  candour  in  the  smile  that  covered  it  as  he  finally  made 
ready  to  depart  with  the  doctor.  He  should  never,  he  said,  know 
how  to  be  grateful  enough  to  madame  and  her  daughter  for  their 
kindness  to  him.  But  when  pressed  on  the  point  of  where  he 
intended  to  go,  and  how  they  should  hear  what  had  become  of 
him,  he  answered  vaguely.  He  was  undecided,  but,  of  course, 
he  would  write  and  tell  them  as  they  so  kindly  wished  to  hear 
of  him.  Would  mademoiselle  give  him  the  address  written  down  ? 

They  found  themselves — at  least,  the  doctor  and  Sally  did — 
inferring,  from  his  refreshed  manner  and  his  confidence  about 
departing,  that  his  memory  was  coming  back,  or  would  come 
back.  It  might  have  seemed  needless  inquisitiveness  to  press 
him  with  further  questions.  They  left  the  point  alone.  After 
all,  they  had  no  more  right  to  catechize  him  about  himself  than 
if  he  had  been  knocked  down  by  a  cart  outside  the  door,  and 
brought  into  the  house  unconscious — a  thing  which  might  quite 
well  have  happened. 

Mrs.  Nightingale  seemed  very  anxious  he  should  not  go  away 
quite  unprovided  with  money.  She  asked  Dr.  Vereker  to  pass 
him  on  a  loan  from  her  before  he  parted  with  him.  He  could 
post  it  back  when  it  was  quite  convenient,  so  the  doctor  was  to 
tell  him.  The  doctor  asked,  Wasn't  a  sovereign  a  large  order? 
But  she  seemed  to  think  not.  '^Besides,"  said  she,  "it  makes  it 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  33 

certain  we  shall  not  lose  sight  of  him.  I'm  not  sure  we  ought  to 
let  him  go  at  all,"  added  she.  She  seemed  very  uneasy  about  it — 
almost  exaggeratedly  so,  the  doctor  thought.  But  he  was  re- 
assuring and  confident,  and  she  allowed  his  judgment  to  over- 
rule hers.  But  he  must  bring  him  back  without  scruple  if  he 
saw  reason  to  do  so.  He  promised,  and  the  two  departed  to- 
gether, the  gait  and  manner  of  Fenwick  giving  rise  to  no 
immediate  apprehension. 

"How  rum!"  said  Sally,  when  they  had  gone.  "I  never 
thought  I  should  live  to  see  a  man  electrocuted." 

"A  man  what?" 

"Well,  half-electrocuted,  then.     I  say,  mother " 

"What,  dear  ?"  She  is  looking  very  tired,  and  speaks  absently. 
Sally  makes  the  heat  responsible  again  in  her  mind,  and  con- 
tinues : 

"I  don't  believe  his  name's  Algernon  at  all !  It's  Arthur,  or 
Andrew,  or  something  of  that  sort." 

"You're  very  wise,  poppet.     Why?" 

"Because  you  stopped  such  a  long  time  after  Algernon.  It 
was  like  cheating  at  Spiritualism.  You  must  say  the  alphabet 

quite  steady — A — B — C — D "  Sally  sketches  out  the  proper 

attitude  for  the  impartial  inquirer.  "Or  else  you're  an  accom- 
plice." 

"You're  a  puss !  No,  his  name's  Algernon,  right  enough.  .  .  . 
I  mean,  I've  no  doubt  it's  Algernon.  Why  shouldn't  it  be  ?" 

"No  reason  at  all.  Dr.  Vereker's  is  Conrad,  so,  of  course, 
there's  no  reason  why  his  shouldn't  be  Algernon."  Satisfactory 
and  convincing !  At  least,  the  speaker  thinks  so,  and  is  perfectly 
satisfied.  Her  mother  doesn't  quarrel  with  the  decision. 

"Kitten!"  she  says  suddenly.  And  then  in  reply  to  her 
daughter's,  "What's  up,  mammy  dear?"  she  suggests  that  they 
shall  walk  out  in  front — it  is  a  quiet,  retired  sort  of  cul-de-sac 
road,  ending  in  a  fence  done  over  with  tar,  with  nails  along  the 
top  like  the  letter  L  upside  down — in  the  cool.  "Ifs  quite 
delicious  now  the  sun's  gone  down,  and  Martha  can  make  supper 
another  half-hour  late."  Agreed. 

The  mother  pauses  as  they  reach  the  gate.  "Who's  that  talk- 
ing?" she  asks,  and  listens. 

"Nobody.     It's  only  the  sparrows  going  to  bed." 


34  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"No,  no;  not  that!  Shish!  be  quiet!  I'm  sure  I  heard  Dr. 
Vereker's  voice " 

"How  could  you  ?     He's  home  by  now." 

"Do  be  quiet,  child !"     She  continues  listening. 

"Why  not  look  round  the  corner  and  see  if  it  isn't  him  ?" 

"Well,  I  was  going  to;  only  you  and  the  sparrows  make  such 
a  chattering.  .  .  .  There,  I  knew  it  would  be  that !  Why  doesn't 
he  bring  him  back  here,  at  once?"  For  at  the  end  of  the  short 
road  are  Dr.  Vereker  and  Fenwick,  the  latter  with  his  hand  on 
the  top  of  a  post,  as  though  resting.  They  must  have  been  there 
some  minutes. 

"Fancy  their  having  got  no  further  than  the  fire-alarm!" 
says  Sally,  who  takes  account  of  her  surroundings. 

"Of  course,  I  ought  never  to  have  let  him  go."  Thus  her 
mother,  with  decision  in  her  voice.  "Come  on,  child!" 

She  seems  greatly  relieved  at  the  matter  having  settled  itself — 
so  Sally  thinks,  at  least. 

"We  got  as  far  as  this,"  Dr.  Vereker  says — rather  meaning- 
lessly,  if  you  come  to  think  of  it.  It  is  so  very  obvious. 

"And  now,"  says  Mrs.  Nightingale,  "how  is  he  to  be  got  back 
again?  That's  the  question!"  She  seems  not  to  have  the 
smallest  doubt  about  the  question,  but  much  about  the  answer. 
It  is  answered,  however,  with  the  assistance  of  the  previous  police- 
constable,  who  reappears  like  a  ghost.  And  Mr.  Fenwick  is  back 
again  within  the  little  white  villa,  much  embarrassed  at  the 
trouble  he  is  giving,  but  unable  to  indicate  any  other  course. 
Clearly,  it  would  never  do  to  accept  the  only  one  he  can  suggest — 
that  he  should  be  left  to  himself,  leaning  on  the  fii^-alarm,  till 
the  full  use  of  his  limbs  should  come  back  to  him. 

Mrs.  Nightingale,  who  is  the  person  principally  involved, 
seems  quite  content  with  the  arrangement.  The  doctor,  in  his 
own  mind,  is  rather  puzzled  at  her  ready  acquiescence ;  but,  then, 
the  only  suggestion  he  could  make  would  be  that  he  should  do 
precisely  the  same  good  office  himself  to  this  victim  of  an  electric 
current  of  a  good  deal  too  many  volts — too  many  for  private 
consumption — or  cab  him  off  to  the  police-station  or  the  work- 
house. For  Mr.  Fenwick  continues  quite  unable  to  give  any 
account  of  his  past  or  his  belongings,  and  can  only  look  for- 
ward to  recollecting  himself,  as  it  were,  to-morrow  morning. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HOW  THE  STRANGER  STOPPED  ON  AT  KRAKATOA  VILLA.  OF  THE  FREAKS 
OF  AN  EXTINGUISHED  MEMORY.  OF  HOW  THE  STRANGER  GOT  A  GOOD 
APPOINTMENT,  BUT  NONE  COULD  SAY  WHO  HE  WAS,  NOR  WHENCE 

WE  must  suppose  that  the  personal  impression  produced  by  the 
man  so  strangely  thrown  on  the  hands  of  Mrs.  Nightingale  and 
her  daughter  was  a  pleasant  one.  For  had  the  reverse  been  the 
case,  the  resources  of  civilisation  for  disposing  of  him  elsewhere 
had  not  been  exhausted  when  the  decision  was  come  to  that  he 
should  remain  where  he  was ;  till  next  morning,  at  any  rate.  The 
lady  of  the  house — of  course  the  principal  factor  in  the  solution 
of  the  problem — appeared,  as  we  have  seen,  to  have  made  up  her 
mind  on  the  subject.  And  probably  her  daughter  had  been 
enough  influenced  by  the  stranger's  manner  and  appearance,  even 
in  the  short  period  of  the  interview  we  have  just  described,  to 
get  rid  of  a  feeling  she  had  of  self-reproach  for  her  own  rash- 
ness. We  don't  understand  girls,  but  we  ask  this  question  of 
those  who  do :  Is  it  possible  that  Miss  Sally  was  impressed  by  the 
splendid  arm  with  the  name  tattooed  on  it — an  arm  in  which 
every  muscle  told  as  in  a  Greek  statue,  without  infringing  on  its 
roundness — the  arm  of  Theseus  or  Ilissus?  Or  was  it  the  tone 
of  his  voice — a  musical  one  enough?  Or  merely  his  generally 
handsome  face  and  courteous  manner? 

He  remained  that  night  at  the  house,  but  next  day  still  remem- 
bered nothing.  He  wished  to  go  on  his  way — destination  not 
known;  but  somewhere — and  would  have  done  so  had  it  not  been 
for  Mrs.  Nightingale,  whose  opposition  to  his  going  was,  thought 
Dr.  Vereker,  almost  more  decisive  than  the  case  called  for.  So 
he  remained  on,  that  day  and  the  next,  slowly  regaining  the  use 
of  his  right  hand.  But  his  memory  continued  a  blank;  and 
though  he  was  not  unable  to  converse  about  passing  events,  he 
could  not  fix  his  attention,  or  only  with  a  great  effort.  What 
was  very  annoying  to  Sally  was  that  he  was  absolutely  unable  to 

35 


36  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

account  for  his  remark  about  her  name  and  her  mother's  in  the 
railway-carriage.  He  could  not  even  remember  making  this. 
He  could  recall  no  reason  why  he  should  have  made  it,  from  any 
of  the  few  things  that  came  back  to  his  mind  now — hazily,  like 
ghosts.  Was  he  speaking  the  truth?  Why  not?  Mrs.  Nightin- 
gale asked.  Why  not  forget  that  as  readily  as  anything  else? 

His  distress  at  this  inability  to  remember,  to  account  for  him- 
self, to  himself  or  any  one  else,  was  almost  painful  to  witness. 
The  only  consolatory  circumstance  was  that  his  use  and  knowl- 
edge of  words  remained  intact;  it  was  his  memory  of  actual 
incidents  and  people  in  the  past  that  was  in  fault.  Definite  effort 
to  follow  slight  clues  remaining  in  his  mind  ended  in  failure, 
or  only  served  to  show  that  their  origin  was  traceable  to  literary 
fiction.  But  his  language-faculty  seemed  perfectly  in  order.  It 
came  out  that  he  spoke  French  fluently,  and  a  little  Spanish,  but 
he  was  just  as  ready  with  German.  It  seemed  as  if  he  had  been 
recently  among  French  people,  if  one  could  judge  from  such 
things  as  his  calling  his  hostess  "Madame"  when  he  recovered. 
These  facts  came  to  light  in  the  course  of  next  day,  the  second  of 
his  stay  in  the  house.  The  favourable  impression  he  had  pro- 
duced on  Miss  Sally  did  not  diminish,  and  it  seemed  much 
easier  and  more  natural  to  acquiesce  in  his  remaining  than  to 
cast  about  for  a  new  whereabouts  to  transfer  him  to.  So  his 
departure  was  deferred — for  a  day,  at  least,  or  perhaps  until  the 
room  he  occupied  should  be  wanted  for  other  purposes.  The 
postponements  on  the  days  that  followed  were  a  natural  sequence 
so  long  as  there  remained  any  doubt  of  his  ability  to  shift  for 
himself. 

But  in  about  a  month's  time  the  effects  of  the  nervous  shock 
had  nearly  disappeared,  and  he  had  almost  recovered  the  use  of 
his  hand — could,  in  fact,  write  easily.  Besides,  as  long  as  he 
remained,  it  would  be  impossible  for  an  old  friend  of  Mrs. 
Nightingale's,  who  frequently  stayed  the  night,  when  he  came 
on  an  evening  visit,  to  follow  a  custom  which  was  in  the  winter 
almost  invariable.  In  the  summer  it  was  less  important ;  and  as 
soon  as  this  friend,  an  old  military  gentleman  spoken  of  as  "the 
Major,"  could  be  got  to  understand  exactly  what  had  taken  place, 
he  readily  gave  up  his  quarters  at  Krakatoa  Villa,  and  returned 
to  his  own,  at  the  top  of  a  house  in  Ball  Street,  Mayfair. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  37 

Nevertheless,  the  inevitable  time  came  for  looking  Fenwick's 
future  in  the  face.  It  was  difficult,  as  he  was  unable  to  con- 
tribute a  solution  of  the  question,  except  by  his  readiness  to  go 
out  and  find  work  for  himself,  promising  not  to  come  back  till 
he  found  it. 

"You'll  see  I  shall  come  back  to  dinner,"  said  he.  "I  shan't 
make  you  late." 

Sally  asked  him  what  sort  of  work  he  should  look  for. 

"I  have  a  sort  of  inner  conviction,"  he  replied,  "that  I  could 
do  almost  anything  I  turned  my  hand  to.  Probably  it  is  only  a 
diseased  confidence  bred  of  what  you  might  call  my  artificial 
inexperience.  Every  sharp  young  man's  bona  fide  inexperience 
lands  him  in  that  delusion." 

"But  you  must  have  some  kind  of  preference  for  something, 
however  much  you  forget." 

"If  I  were  to  choose,  I  think  I  should  like  horse-training.  .  .  . 
Oh  no,  of  course  I  can't  recall  the  training  of  any  specific  horse. 
But  I  know  I  know  all  about  it,  for  all  that.  I  can  feel  the 
knowledge  of  it  itching  in  my  finger-ends.  Yes — I  could  train 
horses.  Fruit-farming  would  require  capital." 

"Who  said  anything  about  fruit-farming?" 

Fenwick  laughed  aloud.  It  was  a  great  big  laugh,  that  made 
Rosalind,  who  was  giving  directions  in  the  kitchen,  just  across 
the  passage,  call  out  to  know  what  they  were  laughing  at. 

"I'll  be  hanged  if  I  know,"  said  he,  "why  I  said  fruit- 
farming — I  must  have  had  something  to  do  with  it.  It's  all 
very  odd." 

"But  the  horses — the  horses,"  said  Sally,  who  did  not  want 
him  to  wander  from  the  point.  "How  should  you  go  about  it? 
Should  you  walk  into  Tattersall's  without  a  character,  and  ask 
for  a  place?" 

"Not  a  bit  of  it!  I  should  saunter  into  'TatY  like  a  swell, 
and  ask  them  if  they  couldn't  find  me  a  raw  colt  to  try  my  hand 
on  for  a  wager.  Say  I  had  laid  a  hundred  I  would  quiet  down 
the  most  vicious  quadruped  they  could  find  in  an  hour." 

"But  that  would  be  fibs." 

"Oh  no !    I  could  do  it.    But  I  don't  know  why  I  know  .  .  ." 

"I  didn't  mean  that.  I  meant  you  wouldn't  have  laid  the 
wager." 


38  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Yes,  I  should.  I  lay  it  you  now!  Come,  Miss  Sally! — a 
hundred  pounds  to  a  brass  farthing  I  knock  all  the  vice  out  of 
the  worst  beast  they  can  find  in  an  hour.  I  shouldn't  say  the 
wager  had  been  accepted,  you  know." 

"Well,  anyhow,  I  shan't  accept  it.  You  haven't  got  a  hundred 
pounds  to  pay  with.  To  be  sure,  I  haven't  got  a  brass  farthing 
that  I  know  of.  It's  as  broad  as  it  is  long." 

"Yes,  it's  that,"  he  replied  musingly — "as  broad  as  it  is  long. 
I  haven't  got  a  hundred  pounds,  that  I  know  of."  He  repeated 
this  twice,  becoming  very  absent  and  thoughtful. 

Sally  felt  apologetic  for  reminding  him  of  his  position,  and 
immediately  said  so.  She  was  evidently  a  girl  quite  incapable  of 
any  reserves  or  concealments.  But  she  had  mistaken  his 
meaning. 

"No,  no,  dear  Miss  Sally,"  said  he.  "Not  that — not  that  at 
all!  I  spoke  like  that  because  it  all  seemed  so  strange  to  me. 
Do  you  know  ? — of  all  the  things  I  can't  recollect,  the  one  I  can't 
recollect  most — can  you  understand? — is  ever  being  in  want  of 
money.  I  must  have  had  plenty.  I  am  sure  of  it." 

"I  dare  say  you  had.  You'll  recollect  it  all  presently,  and 
what  a  lark  that  will  be!"  Sally's  ingenious  optimism  made 
matters  very  pleasant.  She  did  not  like  to  press  the  conversa- 
tion on  these  lines,  lest  Mr.  Fenwick  should  refer  to  a  loan  she 
knew  her  mother  had  made  him ;  indeed,  had  it  not  been  for  this 
the  poor  man  would  have  been  hard  put  to  it  for  clothes  and 
other  necessaries.  All  such  little  matters,  which  hardly  concern 
the  story,  had  been  landed  on  a  comfortable  footing  at  the  date  of 
this  conversation. 

But  Mr.  Fenwick  did  not  lend  himself  to  the  agreeable  antici- 
pation of  Sally's  "lark."  There  was  a  pained  distraction  on  his 
handsome  face  as  he  gave  his  head  a  great  shake,  tossing  about 
the  mass  of  brown  hair,  which  was  still  something  of  a  lion's 
mane,  in  spite  of  the  recent  ministrations  of  a  hairdresser.  He 
walked  to  the  window-bay  that  looked  out  on  the  little  garden, 
shaking  and  rubbing  his  head,  and  then  came  back  to  where  he 
had  been  sitting — always  as  one  wrestling  with  some  painful  half- 
memory  he  could  not  trace.  Then  he  spoke  again. 

"Whether  the  sort  of  flash  that  comes  in  my  mind  of  writing 
my  name  in  a  cheque-book  is  really  a  recollection  of  doing  so?  or 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  39 

merely  the  knowledge  that  I  must  have  done  so,  I  cannot  tell. 
But  it  is  disagreeable — thoroughly  disagreeable — and  strange  to 
the  last  degree.  I  cannot  tell  you  how — how  torturing  it  is, 
always  to  be  compelled  to  stop  on  the  threshold  of  an  uncom- 
pleted recollection." 

"I  have  the  idea,  though,  quite!"  said  Sally.  "But  of  course 
one  never  remembers  signing  one's  name,  any  particular  time. 
One  does  it  mechanically.  So  I  don't  wonder." 

"Yes !  But  the  nasty  part  of  the  flash  is  that  I  always  know 
that  it  is  not  my  name.  Last  time  it  came — just  now  this 
minute — it  was  a  name  like  Harrington  or  Carrington.  Oh 
dear !"  He  shook  and  rubbed  his  head  again,  with  the  old  action. 

"Perhaps  your  name  isn't  Fenwick,  but  Harrington  or  Car- 
rington ?" 

"No !  That  cock  won't  fight.  In  a  flash,  I  know  it's  not  my 
own  name  as  I  write  it." 

"Oh,  but  I  see!"  Sally  is  triumphant.  "You  signed  for  a 
firm  you  belonged  to,  of  course.  People  do  sign  for  firms,  don't 
they?"  added  she,  with  misgivings  about  her  own  business 
capacity.  But  Mr.  Fenwick  did  not  accept  this  solution,  and 
continued  silent  and  depressed. 

The  foregoing  is  one  of  many  similar  conversations  between 
Fenwick  and  Sally,  or  her  mother,  or  all  three,  during  the  term 
of  his  stay  at  Krakatoa  Villa.  They  were  less  encouraged  by  the 
older  lady,  who  counselled  Fenwick  to  accept  his  oblivion  pas- 
sively, and  await  the  natural  return  of  his  mental  powers.  They 
would  all  come  in  time,  she  said ;  and  young  Dr.  Vereker,  though 
his  studious  and  responsible  face  grew  still  more  studious  and 
responsible  as  time  went  on,  and  the  mind  of  this  case  continued 
a  blank,  still  encouraged  passivity,  and  spoke  confidently — what- 
ever he  thought — of  an  early  and  complete  recovery. 

When,  in  Fenwick's  absence,  Sally  reported  to  Dr.  Vereker 
and  her  mother  the  scheme  for  applying  to  "Tat's"  for  a  wild 
horse  to  break  in,  the  latter  opposed  and  denounced  it  so  strongly, 
on  the  ground  of  the  danger  of  the  experiment,  that  both  Sally 
and  the  doctor  promised  to  support  her  if  Fenwick  should  broach 
the  idea  again.  But  when  he  did  so,  it  was  so  clear  that  the  dis- 
favour Mrs.  Nightingale  showed  for  such  a  risky  business  would 
be  sufficient  to  deter  him  from  trying  it  that  neither  thought  it 


40  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

necessary  to  say  a  word  in  her  support;  and  the  conversation  went 
off  into  a  discussion  of  how  it  came  about  that  Fenwick  should 
remember  Tattersall's.  But,  said  he,  he  did  not  remember 
Tattersall's  even  now.  And  yet  hearing  the  name,  he  had  auto- 
matically called  it  "Tat's."  Many  other  instances  showed  that 
his  power  of  imagery,  in  relation  to  the  past,  was  paralysed, 
while  his  language-faculty  remained  intact,  just  as  many  fluent 
speakers  and  writers  spell  badly.  Only  it  was  an  extreme 
case. 

A  fortunate  occurrence  that  happened  at  this  time  gave  its 
quietus  to  the  unpopular  horse-breaking  speculation.  It  hap- 
pened that,  as  Mrs.  Nightingale  was  shopping  at  a  big  "universal 
providing"  stores  not  far  away,  one  of  the  clerks  had  some  diffi- 
culty in  interpreting  a  French  phrase  in  a  letter  just  received 
from  abroad.  No  one  near  him  looked  more  likely  to  help  than 
Mrs.  Nightingale,  but  she  could  do  nothing  when  applied  to; 
although,  she  said,  she  had  been  taught  French  in  her  youth. 
But  she  felt  certain  Mr.  Fenwick  could  be  of  use — at  her  house. 
French  idiom  was  evidently  unfamiliar  in  the  neighbourhood, 
for  the  young  gentleman  from  the  office  jumped  at  the  oppor- 
tunity. He  went  away  with  Mrs.  Nightingale's  card,  inscribed 
with  a  message,  and  came  back  before  she  had  done  shopping 
(not  that  that  means  such  a  very  short  time),  not  only  with  an 
interpretation,  but  with  an  exhaustive  draft  of  an  answer  in 
French,  which  she  saw  to  be  both  skilful  and  scholarly.  It  was 
so  much  so  that  a  fortnight  later  an  inquiry  came  to  know  if 
Mr.  Fenwick's  services  would  be  available  for  a  firm  in  the  City, 
which  had  applied  to  be  universally  provided  with  a  man  having 
exactly  his  attainments  and  no  others.  In  less  than  a  month 
he  was  installed  in  a  responsible  position  as  their  foreign  corre- 
spondent and  in  receipt  of  a  very  respectable  salary.  The 
rapidity  of  phrasing  in  this  movement  was  abnormal — pres- 
tissimo, in  fact,  if  we  indulge  our  musical  vocabulary.  But  the 
instrumentation  would  have  seemed  less  surprising  to  Sally  had 
she  known  the  lengths  her  mother  had  gone  in  the  proffer  of  a 
substantial  guarantee  for  Fenwick's  personal  honesty.  This 
seeming  rashness  did  not  transpire  at  the  time;  had  it  done  so, 
it  might  have  appeared  unintelligible — to  Sally,  at  any  rate. 
She  would  not  have  been  surprised  at  herself  for  backing  the 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  41 

interests  of  a  man  nearly  electrocuted  over  her  half-crown,  but 
why  should  her  mother  endorse  her  protege  so  enthusiastic- 
ally? 

It  is  perhaps  hardly  necessary  for  us  to  dwell  on  the  unsuccess- 
ful attempts  that  were  made  to  recover  touch  with  other  actors 
on  the  stage  of  Fenwick's  vanished  past.  Advertisement — vari- 
ously worded — in  the  second  column  of  the  "Times,"  three  times 
a  week  for  a  month,  produced  no  effect.  Miss  Sally  frequently 
referred  with  satisfaction  to  the  case  of  John  Williams,  reported 
among  the  Psychical  Researches  of  the  past  years,  in  which  a 
man  who  vanished  in  England  was  found  years  after  carrying  on 
a  goods-store  in  Chicago  under  another  name,  with  a  new  wife 
and  family,  having  utterly  forgotten  the  first  half  of  his  life  and 
all  his  belongings.  Her  mother  seemed  only  languidly  interested 
in  this  illustration,  and  left  the  active  discussion  of  the  subject 
chiefly  to  Sally,  who  speculated  endlessly  on  the  whole  of  the 
story;  without,  however,  throwing  any  fresh  light  on  it — unless 
indeed,  the  Chicago  man  could  be  considered  one.  And  the 
question  naturally  arose,  as  long  as  his  case  continued  to  hold  out 
hopes  of  a  sudden  return  of  memory,  and  until  we  were  certain 
his  condition  was  chronic,  why  go  to  expense  and  court  publicity  ? 
By  the  time  he  was  safely  installed  in  his  situation  at  the  wine- 
merchant's,  the  idea  of  a  police-inquiry,  application  to  the  magis- 
trates, and  so  forth,  had  become  distasteful  to  all  concerned, 
and  to  none  more  so  than  Fenwick  himself. 

When  Dr.  Vereker,  acting  on  his  own  account,  and  unknown 
to  Mrs.  Nightingale  and  Fenwick,  made  confidential  reference  to 
Scotland  Yard,  that  Yard  smiled  cynically  over  the  Chicago 
storekeeper,  and  expressed  the  opinion  that  probably  Fenwick's 
game  was  a  similar  game,  and  that  things  of  this  sort  were 
usually  some  game.  The  doctor  observed  that  he  knew  with- 
out being  told  that  nine  such  cases  out  of  ten  had  human  ras- 
cality at  the  bottom  of  them,  but  that  he  had  consulted  that 
Yard  in  the  belief  that  this  might  be  a  tenth  case.  The  Yard 
said  very  proper,  and  it  would  do  its  best,  and  no  doubt  did,  but 
nothing  was  elucidated. 

It  is  just  possible  that  had  Mr.  Fenwick  communicated  every 
clue  he  found,  down  to  the  smallest  trifle,  Dr.  Vereker  might 
have  been  able  to  get  at  something  through  the  Criminal  In- 


42  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

vestigation  Department.  But  it  wasn't  fair  to  Sherlock  Holmes 
to  keep  anything  back.  Fenwick,  knowing  nothing  of  Vereker's 
inquiry,  did  so;  for  he  had  decided  to  say  nothing  about  a  cer- 
tain pawn-ticket  that  was  in  the  pocket  of  an  otherwise  empty 
purse  or  pocket-book,  evidently  just  bought.  He  would,  how- 
ever, investigate  it  himself,  and  did  so. 

It  was  quite  three  weeks,  though,  before  he  felt  safe  to  go 
about  alone  to  any  place  distant  from  the  house,  more  especially 
when  he  did  not  know  what  the  expedition  would  lead  to.  When 
at  last  he  got  to  the  pawnbroker's,  he  found  that  that  gentleman 
at  the  counter  did  not  recognise  him,  or  said  he  did  not.  Fen- 
wick,  of  course,  could  not  ask  the  question:  "Did  I  pawn  this 
watch  ?"  It  would  have  seemed  lunacy.  But  he  framed  a  ques- 
tion that  answered  as  well,  to  his  thinking. 

"Would  you  very  kindly  tell  me,"  he  asked,  dropping  his 
voice,  "whether  the  person  that  pawned  this  watch  was  at  all 
like  me — like  a  brother  of  mine,  for  instance?"  Perhaps  he 
was  not  a  good  hand  at  pretences,  and  the  pawnbroker  outclassed 
him  easily. 

"Xo,  sir,"  replied  he,  without  looking  to  see;  "that  I  most 
certainly  can  not  tell  you."  Fenwick  was  not  convinced  that 
this  was  true,  but  had  to  admit  to  himself  that  it  might  be. 
This  man's  life  was  one  long  record  of  an  infinity  of  short  loans, 
and  its  problem  was  the  advancing  of  the  smallest  conceivable 
sums  on  the  largest  obtainable  security.  Why  should  he  recollect 
one  drop  in  the  ocean  of  needy  applicants?  The  only  answer 
Fenwick  could  give  to  this  was  based  on  his  belief  that  he  looked 
quite  unlike  the  other  customers.  More  knowledge  would  have 
shown  him  that  there  was  not  one  of  those  customers,  scarcely, 
but  had  a  like  belief.  It  is  the  common  form  of  human  thought 
among  those  who  seek  to  have  pawns  broked.  They  are  a  class 
made  up  entirely  of  exceptions. 

Fenwick  came  away  from  the  shop  with  the  watch  that  must 
have  been  his.  That  was  how  he  thought  of  it.  As  soon  as  he 
wore  it  again,  it  became  his  watch,  naturally.  But  he  could 
remember  nothing  about  it.  And  its  recovery  from  the  pawn- 
broker's he  could  not  remember  leaving  it  at  became  an  absurd 
dream.  Perhaps  in  Sherlock  Holmes's  hands  it  would  have  pro- 
vided a  valuable  clue.  Fenwick  said  nothing  further  about  it; 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  43 

put  it  in  a  drawer  until  all  inquiries  about  him  had  died  into 
the  past. 

Another  little  thing  that  might  have  helped  was  the  cab- 
man's number  written  on  his  wristband.  But  here  Fate  threw 
investigation  off  her  guard.  The  ciphers  were,  as  it  chanced, 
3,600;  and  an  unfortunate  shrewdness  of  Scotland  Yard,  when 
Dr.  Vereker  communicated  this  clue,  spotted  the  date  in  it — the 
third  day  of  the  sixth  month  of  1900.  So  no  one  dreamed  of 
the  cabby,  who  could  at  least  have  shown  where  the  hat  was 
lost  that  might  have  had  a  name  or  address  inside  it.  and  where 
he  left  its  owner  in  the  end.  And  there  was  absolutely  no  clue 
to  anything  elsewhere  among  his  clothes.  The  Panama  hat 
might  have  been  bought  anywhere;  the  suit  of  blue  serge  was 
ticketless  inside  the  collar,  and  the  shirt  unmarked — probably 
bought  for  the  voyage  only.  Fenwick  had  succeeded  in  for- 
getting himself  just  at  a  moment  when  he  was  absolutely  with- 
out a  reminder.  And  it  seemed  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to 
wait  for  the  revival  of  memory. 

This,  then,  is  how  it  came  about  that,  within  three  months  of 
his  extraordinary  accident,  Mr.  Fenwick  was  comfortably  settled 
in  an  apartment  within  a  few  minutes'  walk  of  Krakatoa  Villa; 
and  all  the  incidents  of  his  original  appearance  were  getting 
merged  in  the  insoluble,  and  would  soon,  no  doubt,  under  the 
influence  of  a  steady  ever-present  new  routine  of  life,  be  com- 
pletely absorbed  in  the  actual  past. 


CHAPTEE  V 

THE    CHRISTMAS    AFTER.      OP    THE    CHURCH    OP    ST.    SATISFAX,    AND    A 
YOUNG  IDIOT   WHO  CAME  THERE 

WHEN  one  is  called  away  in  the  middle  of  a  street-fight,  and 
misses  seeing  the  end  of  it,  how  embittered  one's  existence  is, 
and  continues  for  some  time  after!  Think  what  our  friend  the 
cabman  would  have  felt  had  he  missed  the  denouement!  And 
when  one  finds  oneself  again  on  its  site — if  that  is  the  correct 
expression — how  one  wishes  one  was  not  ashamed  to  inquire 
about  its  result  from  the  permanent  officials  on  the  spot — the 
waterman  attached  to  the  cab-rank,  the  crossing-sweeper  at  the 
corner,  the  neolithographic  artist  who  didn't  really  draw  that 
half-mackerel  himself,  but  is  there  all  day  long,  for  all  that;  or 
even  the  apothecary's  shop  over  the  way,  on  the  chance  that 
the  casualties  went  or  were  taken  there  for  treatment  after  the 
battle.  One  never  does  ask,  because  one  is  so  proud;  but  if  one 
did  ask,  one  would  probably  find  that  oblivion  had  drawn  a  veil 
over  the  event,  and  that  none  of  one's  catechumens  had  heard 
speak  of  any  such  an  occurrence,  and  that  it  must  have  been 
another  street.  Because,  if  it  had  'a  been  there,  they  would 
have  seen  to  a  certainty.  And  the  monotonous  traffic  rolls  on, 
on,  on;  and  the  two  counter-streams  of  creatures,  each  with  a 
story,  divide  and  subdivide  over  the  spot  where  the  underneath 
man's  head  sounded  on  the  kerbstone,  which  took  no  notice  at 
the  time,  and  now  seems  to  know  less  than  ever  about  it. 

Are  we,  in  thus  moralising,  merely  taking  the  mean  advantage 
the  author  is  apt  to  imagine  he  has  established  over  his  reader 
when  he  ends  off  a  chapter  with  a  snap,  and  hopes  the  said 
reader  will  not  dare  to  skip?  No,  we  are  not.  We  really  mean 
something,  and  shall  get  to  it  in  time.  Let  us  only  be  clear 
what  it  is  ourselves. 

It  refers,  at  any  rate,  to  the  way  in  which  the  contents  of 
Chapters  I.  and  II.  had  become  records  of  the  past  six  months 

44 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  45 

later,  when  the  snow  was  on  the  ground  four  inches  thick  on 
Christmas  "morning — two  inches,  at  least,  having  been  last 
night's  contribution — and  made  it  all  sweet  and  smooth  all  over 
so  that  there  need  be  no  unpleasantness.  As  Sally  looked  out 
of  her  mother's  bedroom  window  towards  the  front  through  the 
Venetian  blind,  she  saw  the  footprints  of  cats  alone  on  the  snow 
in  the  road,  and  of  the  milk  alone  along  the  pavement.  For  the 
milk  had  preferred  to  come  by  hand,  rather  than  plough  its 
tricycle  through  the  unknown  depths  and  drifts  of  Glenmoira 
Road,  W.,  to  which  it  had  found  its  way  over  tracks  already 
palliated  by  the  courage  of  the  early  'bus — not  plying  for  hire 
at  that  hour,  but  only  seeking  its  equivalent  of  the  carceres  of 
the  Roman  Coliseum,  to  inaugurate  the  carriage  of  twelve  in- 
side and  fourteen  out  to  many  kinds  of  Divine  Service  early  in 
the  day,  and  one  kind  only  of  dinner-service  late — the  one  folk 
eat  too  much  pudding  and  mince-pie  at,  and  have  to  take  a  dose 
after.  During  this  early  introductory  movement  of  the  'bus  its 
conductor  sits  inside  like  a  lord,  and  classifies  documents.  But 
he  has  nothing  to  do  with  our  story.  Let  us  thank  him  for 
facilitating  the  milk,  and  dismiss  him. 

"My  gracious  goodness  me!"  said  Sally,  when  she  saw  the 
snow.  She  did  not  say  it  quite  from  the  bottom  of  her  heart, 
and  as  her  own  form  of  expression;  but  in  inverted  commas,  as 
it  were,  the  primary  responsibility  being  cook's  or  Jane's.  "You 
mustn't  think  of  getting  up,  mother." 

"Oh,  nonsense!  I  shall  get  up  the  minute  the  hot  water 
comes." 

"You  won't  do  any  good  by  getting  up.  You  had  much 
better  lie  in  bed.  7  shouldn't  get  up,  if  I  was  you,"  etc.,  etc. 

"Oh,  stuff!  My  rheumatism's  better.  Do  you  know,  I  really 
think  the  ring  has  done  it  good.  Dr.  Vereker  may  laugh  as 
much  as  he  likes " 

"Well,  the  proof  of  the  pudding's  in  the  eating.  But  wait 
till  you  see  how  thick  the  snow  is.  Come — in!"  This  is  very 
staccato.  Jane  was  knocking  at  the  door  with  cans  of  really 
hot  water  this  time.  "I  said  come  in  before.  Merry  Christmas 
and  happy  New  Year,  Jane!  .  .  .  Oh,  I  say!  What  a  dear 
little  robin !  He's  such  a  little  duck,  I  hope  that  cat  won't  get 
him !"  And  Sally,  who  is  huddled  up  in  a  thick  dressing-gown 


46  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

and  is  shivering,  is  so  excited  that  she  goes  on  looking  through 
the  blind,  and  the  peep-hole  she  has  had  to  make  to  see  clear 
through  the  frosted  pane,  in  spite  of  the  deadly  cold  on  the 
finger-tip  she  rubbed  it  with.  Her  mother  felt  interested,  too. 
in  the  fate  of  the  robin,  but  not  to  the  extent  of  impairing  her 
last  two  minutes  in  bed  by  admitting  the  slightest  breath  of  cold 
air  inside  a  well-considered  fortress.  She  was  really  going  to 
get  up,  though,  that  was  flat !  The  fire  would  blaze  directly, 
although  at  this  moment  it  was  blowing  wood-smoke  down  Jane's 
throat,  and  making  her  choke. 

Directly  was  five  or  six  minutes,  but  the  fire  did  blaze  up 
royally  in  the  end.  You  see,  it  wasn't  a  slow-combustion-grate, 
and  it  burned  too  much  fuel,  and  flared  away  the  coal,  and  did 
all  sorts  of  comfortable,  uneconomical  things.  So  did  Jane,  who 
had  put  in  a  whole  bundle  of  wood. 

But  now  that  the  wood  was  past  praying  for,  and  Jane  had 
departed,  after  thawing  the  hearts  of  two  sponges,  it  was  just 
as  well  to  take  advantage  of  the  blaze  while  it  lasted.  And  Mrs. 
Nightingale  and  her  daughter,  in  the  thickest  available  dressing- 
gowns,  and  pretending  they  were  not  taking  baths  only  because 
the  bath-room  was  thrown  out  of  gear  by  the  frost,  took  advan- 
tage of  the  said  blaze  to  their  heart's  content  and  harked  back — 
a  good  way  back — on  the  conversation. 

"You  never  said  'Come  in,'  chick." 

"I  did,  mother !  "Well,  if  I  didn't,  at  any  rate,  I  always  tell 
her  not  to  knock.  She  is  the  stupidest  girl.  She  will  knock !" 
Her  mother  doesn't  press  the  point.  There  is  no  bad  blood 
anywhere.  Did  not  Sally  wish  the  handmaiden  a  merry  Christ- 
mas? 

"The  cat  didn't  get  the  robin,  Sally?" 

"Not  he!  The  robin  was  too  sharp  by  half.  Such  a  little 
darling !  But  I  was  sorry  for  the  cat." 

"Poor  pussy!    Not  our  pussy,  was  it?" 

"Oh  no;  it  was  that  piebald  Tom  that  lives  in  at  the  empty 
house  next  door." 

"I  know.     Horrible  beast !" 

"Well,  but  just  think  of  being  out  in  the  cold  in  this  weather, 
with  nothing  to  eat!  Oo — oo — oogh!"  Sally  illustrates,  with 
an  intentional  shudder.  "I  wonder  who  that  is !" 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  47 

"I  didn't  hear  any  one." 

"You'll  see,  he'll  ring  directly.  I  know  who  it  is;  it's  Mr. 
Fenwick  come  to  say  he  can't  come  to-night.  I  heard  the  click 
of  his  skates.  They've  a  sort  of  twinkly  click,  skates  have,  when 
they're  swung  by  a  strap.  He'll  go  out  and  skate  all  day.  He'll 
go  to  Wimbledon." 

The  girl's  hearing  was  quite  correct.  A  ring  came  at  the  bell 
— Krakatoa  had  no  knocker — and  a  short  colloquy  followed 
between  Jane  and  the  ringer.  Then  he  departed,  with  his 
twinkly  click  and  noiseless  footstep  on  the  snow,  slamming  the 
front  gate.  Jane  was  able  to  include  a  card  he  had  left  in  a 
recrudescence  or  reinforcement  of  hot  water.  Sally  takes  the 
card  and  looks  at  it,  and  her  mother  says,  "Well,  Sally?"  with 
a  slight  remonstrance  against  the  unfairness  of  keeping  back 
information  after  you  have  satisfied  your  own  curiosity — a  thing 
people  are  odious  about,  as  we  all  know. 

"He's  coming  all  right,"  says  Sally,  looking  at  both  sides  of 
the  card,  and  passing  it  on  when  she  has  quite  done  with  it. 
Sally,  we  may  mention,  as  it  occurs  to  us  at  this  moment, — 
though  why  we  have  no  idea, — means  to  have  a  double  chin  when 
she  is  five  years  older  than  her  mother  is  now.  At  present  it — 
the  chin — is  merely  so  much  youthful  roundness  and  softness, 
very  white  underneath.  Her  mother  is  quite  of  a  different  type. 
Her  daughter's  father  must  have  had  black  hair,  for  Sally  can 
make  huge  shining  coils,  or  close  plaits,  very  wide,  out  of  her 
inheritance.  Or  it  will  assume  the  form  of  a  bush,  if  indulged, 
till  Sally  is  almost  hidden  under  it,  as  the  Bosjesman  ujider  his 
version  of  Birnam  Wood,  that  he  shoots  his  assegai  from.  But 
the  mother's  is  brown,  with  a  tinge  of  chestnut ;  going  well  with 
her  eyes,  which  have  a  claret  tone,  or  what  is  so  called;  but  we 
believe  people  really  mean  pale  old  port  when  they  say  so.  She 
has  had — still  has,  we  might  say — a  remarkably  fine  figure, 
and  we  don't  feel  the  same  faith  in  Miss  Sally's.  That  young 
lassie  will  get  described  as  plump  some  day,  if  she  doesn't  take 
care. 

But  really  it  is  a  breach  of  confidence  to  get  behind  the  scenes 
and  describe  two  ladies  in  this  way,  when  they  are  so  very  much 
in  deshabille — have  not  even  washed!  We  will  look  at  them 
again  when  they  have  got  their  things  on.  However,  they  may 


48  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

go  on  talking  now.  The  blaze  has  lost  its  splendour,  and  dressing 
cannot  be  indefinitely  delayed.  But  they  can  and  do  talk  from 
room  to  room,  confident  that  cook  and  Jane  are  in  the  basement 
out  of  hearing. 

"We  shall  do  nicely,  kitten!  Six  at  table.  I'm  glad  Mr. 
Fenwick  can  come.  Aren't  you?" 

"Rather!  Fancy  having  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Vereker  and  the  dear 
old  fossil  and  nobody  to  help  out !" 

"My  dear!  You  say  'Dr.  and  Mrs.  Vereker'  as  if  he  was  a 
married  man!" 

"Well — him  and  his  mammy,  then!  He's  good — but  he's 
professional.  Oh  dear — his  professional  manner !  You  have  to 
be  forming  square  to  receive  cavalry  every  five  minutes  to  pre- 
vent his  writing  you  a  prescription." 

"Ungrateful  little  monkey !  You  know  the  last  he  wrote  you 
did  you  no  end  of  good." 

"Yes,  but  I  didn't  ask  him  for  it.  He  wrote  it  by  force.  I 
hate  being  hectored  over  and  bullied.  I  say,  mother !" 

"What,  kitten?" 

"I  hope,  as  Mr.  Fenwick's  coming,  you'll  wear  your  wedding- 
ring." 

"Wear  what?" 

"Wear  your  wedding-ring.  His  ring,  you  know !  You  know 
what  I  mean — the  rheumatic  one." 

"Of  course  I  know  perfectly  well  what  you  mean,"  says 
her  mother,  with  a  shade  of  impatience  in  her  voice.  "But 
why?" 

"Why?  Because  it  gives  him  pleasure  always  to  see  it  on 
your  finger — he  fancies  it's  doing  good  to  the  neuritis." 

"Perhaps  it  is." 

"Very  well,  then ;  why  not  wear  it  ?" 

"Because  it's  so  big,  and  comes  off  in  the  soup,  and  is  a 
nuisance.  And,  then,  he  didn't  give  it  to  me,  either.  He  was  to 
have  had  a  shilling  for  it." 

"But  he  never  did  have  it.  And  it  wasn't  a  shilling.  It  was 
sixpence.  And  he  says  it's  the  only  little  return  he's  ever  been 
able  to  make  for  what  he  calls  our  kindness." 

"1  couldn't  shpvel  him  out  into  the  street." 

"Put  his  wedding-ring  on,  mammy,  to  oblige  me!" 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  49 

"Very  well,  chick — I  don't  mind."  And  so  that  point  is 
settled.  But  something  makes  the  daughter  repeat,  as  she  comes 
into  her  mother's  room  dry-towelling  herself,  "You're  sure 
you  don't  mind,  mammy?"  to  which  the  reply  is,  "No,  no! 
Why  should  I  mind?  It's  all  quite  right,"  with  a  forced  decision, 
equivalent  to  wavering,  about  it.  Sally  looks  at  her  a  moment 
in  a  pause  of  dry-towelling,  and  goes  back  to  her  room  not  quite 
convinced.  Persons  of  the  same  blood,  living  constantly  to- 
gether, are  sometimes  quite  embarrassed  by  their  own  brain- 
waves, and  very  often  misled. 

Exigencies  of  teeth  and  hair  cut  the  talk  short  about  Mr. 
Fenwick.  But  he  gets  renewed  at  breakfast,  and,  in  fact,  goes 
on  more  or  less  until  brought  up  short  by  the  early  service  at 
St.  Satisfax,  when  he  is  extinguished  by  a  preliminary  hymn. 
But  not  before  his  whole  story,  so  far  as  is  known,  has  been 
passed  in  review.  So  that  an  attentive  listener  might  have  gath- 
ered from  their  disjointed  chat  most  of  the  particulars  of  his 
strange  appearance  on  the  scene,  and  of  the  incidents  of  the 
next  few  weeks,  and  their  result  in  the  foundation  of  what  seemed 
likely  to  be  a  permanent  friendship  between  himself  and  Krakatoa 
Villa,  and  what  certainly  was  (all  things  considered)  that  most 
lucrative  and  lucky  post  in  a  good  wine-merchant's  house  in  the 
City.  For  Mr.  Fenwick  had  nothing  to  recommend  him  but  his 
address  and  capacity,  brought  into  notice  by  an  accidental  con- 
currence of  circumstances. 

/  It  had  been  difficult  to  talk  much  about  him  to  himself  without 
seeming  to  wish  to  probe  into  his  past  life ;  and  as  Mrs.  Nightin- 
gale impressed  on  Sally  for  the  twentieth  time,  just  as  they 
arrived  at  St.  Satisfax,  they  really  knew  nothing  of  it.  How 
could  they  even  know  that  this  oblivion  was  altogether  genuine? 
It  might  easily  have  been  so  at  first,  but  who  could  say  how  much 
of  his  past  had  come  back  to  him  during  the  last  six  months? 
An  unwelcome  past,  perhaps,  and  one  he  was  glad  to  help  Obliv- 
ion in  extinguishing. 

As  this  was  on  the  semi-circular  path  in  front  of  the  Saint's 
shrine,  between  two  ramparts  of  swept-up  snow,  and  on  a  correc- 
tive of  cinder-grit,  Sally  ascribed  this  speculation  to  a  disposition 
on  her  mother's  part  to  preach,  she  having  come,  as  it  were, 
within  the  scope  and  atmosphere  of  a  pending  decalogue.  Also, 


50  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

she  thought  the  ostentatious  way  in  which  Mr.  Fenwick  had  gone 
away  to  skate  had  something  to  do  with  it. 

But  she  was  at  all  times  conscious  of  a  certain  access  of  severity 
in  her  mother  as  she  approached  altars — rather  beyond  the  com- 
mon attitude  of  mind  one  ascribes  to  the  bearer  of  a  prayer- 
book  when  one  doesn't  mean  to  go  to  church  oneself.  (We  are 
indebted  for  this  piece  of  information  to  an  intermittent  church- 
goer ;  it  is  on  a  subject  on  which  our  own  impressions  have  little 
value.)  In  the  present  case  Sally  was  going  to  church,  so  she 
had  to  account  to  herself  for  a  nuance  in  her  mother's  manner — 
after  dwelling  on  the  needlessness  and  inadvisability  of  pressing 
Mr.  Fenwick  as  to  his  recollections — by  ascribing  it  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  some  secularism  elsewhere;  and  he  was  the  nearest 
case  of  ungodliness  to  hand. 

"I  wonder  whether  he  believes  anything  at  all!"  said  Sally, 
assuming  the  consecutiveness  of  her  remark. 

"I  don't  see  why  he  shouldn't.  .  .  .  Why  should  he  disbelieve 
more  than  .  .  .  ?  All  I  mean  is,  I  don't  know."  The  speaker 
ended  abruptly ;  but  then  that  may  have  been  because  they  were 
at  the  church  door.  Possibly  as  a  protest  against  having  car- 
ried chat  almost  into  the  precinct,  Mrs.  Nightingale's  preliminary 
burial  of  her  face  in  her  hands  lasted  a  long  time — in  fact,  Sally 
almost  thought  she  had  gone  to  sleep,  and  told  her  so  after- 
wards. "Perhaps,  though,"  she  added,  "it  was  me  came  up  from 
under  the  bedclothes  too  soon."  Then  she  thought  her  levity 
displeased  her  mother,  and  kissed  her.  But  it  wasn't  that.  She 
was  thoughtful  over  something  else. 

This  time,  in  the  church,  it  may  be  Sally  noticed  her  mother's 
abstraction  (or  was  it,  perhaps,  devotional  tension?)  less  than 
she  had  done  when  her  attention  had  been  caught  once  or  twice 
lately  by  a  similar  strained  look.  For  Miss  Sally  had  her  eyes  on 
a  little  gratifying  incident  of  her  own — a  trifle  that  would  al- 
ready have  appeared  as  an  incident  in  her  diary,  had  she  kept 
one,  somewhat  thus: — "Saw  that  young  idiot  from  Cattle/a 
Stores  again  in  church  to-day,  in  a  new  scarlet  necktie.  I  won- 
der whether  it's  me,  or  Miss  Peplow  that  gollops,  or  the  large 
Miss  Baker."  Which  would  have  shown  that  she  was  not  always 
a  nun  breathless  with  adoration  during  religious  exercises.  The 
fact  is,  Sally  would  have  made  a  very  poor  St.  Teresa  indeed. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  51 

The  young  idiot  was  the  same  young  man  who  had  brought 
the  difficult  French  idiom  to  Krakatoa,  while  Mr.  Fenwick  was 
still  without  an  anchorage  of  his  own.  Martha  the  cook,  who 
admitted  him,  not  feeling  equal  to  the  negotiation,  had  merely 
said — would  he  mind  steppin'  in  the  parlour,  and  she  would  send 
Miss  Sally  up?  and  had  departed  bearing  Mrs.  Nightingale's 
credential-card  in  a  hand  as  free  from  grease  as  an  apron  so 
deeply  committed  could  make  it,  and  brought  Miss  Nightingale 
in  from  the  garden,  where  she  was  gardening — possibly  effectu- 
ally, but  what  do  we  know?  When  you  are  gardening  on  a 
summer  afternoon,  you  may  look  very  fetching,  if  you  are  nine- 
teen, and  the  right  sex  for  the  adjective.  Miss  Sally  did,  being 
both,  and  for  our  own  part  we  think  it  was  inconsiderate  and 
thoughtless  of  cook.  Sally  was  sprung  upon  that  young  man 
like  a  torpedo  on  a  ship  with  no  guards  out,  saying  with  fasci- 
nating geniality  through  a  smile  (as  one  interests  oneself  in  a 
civility  that  means  nothing)  that  Mr.  Fenwick  had  just  gone 
out,  and  she  didn't  know  when  he  would  be  back.  But  why  not 
ask  Mrs.  Prince  at  the  school,  opposite  St.  Satisfax,  where  we 
went  to  church;  she  was  French,  and  would  be  sure  to  know 
whnt  it  meant.  She  wouldn't  mind !  "Say  I  sent  you."  And 
the  youth,  whom  the  torpedo  had  struck  amidships,  was  just 
departing,  conscious  of  reluctance,  when  Mr.  Fenwick  appeared, 
having  come  back  for  his  umbrella. 

Sally  played  quite  fair.  She  didn't  hang  about  as  she  might 
have  done,  to  rub  her  pearly  teeth  and  merry  eyebrows  into 
her  victim.  She  went  back  and  gardened  honourably,  while  Mr. 
Fenwick  solved  the  riddle  and  supplied  the  letter.  But  for  all 
that,  the  young  man  appeared  next  Sunday  at  St.  Satisfax's, 
with  an  extremely  new  prayer-book  that  looked  as  if  his  religious 
convictions  were  recent,  and  never  took  his  eyes  off  Sally  all 
through  the  service — that  is,  if  he  did  as  she  supposed,  and 
peeped  all  the  while  that  his  head  ought  to  have  been,  as  she 
metaphorically  expressed  it,  "under  the  clothes." 

Now,  this  was  naturally  a  little  unaccountable  to  Sally,  after 
such  a  very  short  interview;  and  on  the  part,  too,  of  a  young 
gentleman  who  passed  all  the  working  hours  of  the  day  among 
working  houris,  as  it  were  soaked  and  saturated  in  their  fascina- 
tions, and  not  at  liberty  to  squeeze  their  hands  or  ask  them  for 


52  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

one  little  lock  of  hair  all  through  shop-time.  Sally  did  not 
realise  the  force  of  sameness,  nor  the  amount  of  contempt  famil- 
iarity will  breed.  Perhaps  the  houris  got  tired  and  snappish, 
poor  things !  and  used  up  their  artificial  smiles  on  the  customers. 
Perhaps  it  had  leaked  out  that  the  trying-on  hands  contributed 
only  length,  personally,  to  the  loveliness  of  the  trying-on  figures. 
All  sorts  of  things  might  have  happened  to  influence  this  young 
man  towards  St.  Satisfax;  and  how  did  Sally  know  how  often 
he  had  seen  the  other  young  lady  communicants  she  had  specu- 
lated about?  Her  mind  had  certainly  thrown  in  the  large  Miss 
Baker  with  something  of  derision.  But .  that  Sylvia  Peplow 
was  just  the  sort  of  girl  men  run  after,  like  a  big  pale  gloire- 
de-Dijon  rose  all  on  one  side,  with  pale  golden  wavy  hair,  and 
great  big  goggly  blue  eyes,  looking  as  if  she  couldn't  help  it! 
Now  that  we  have  given  you  details,  from  Sally's  inner  conscious- 
ness, of  Miss  Peplow's  appearance,  we  hope  you  will  perceive  why 
she  said  she  "golloped."  We  don't,  exactly. 

However,  on  this  Christmas  morning  it  was  made  clear  whom 
this  young  donkey  was  hankering  after — this  is  Sally's  way  of 
putting  it — as  Miss  Peplow  failed  to  get  her  usual  place  through 
being  late,  and  had  to  sit  in  a  side-aisle,  instead  of  the  opposite 
of  her  to  the  idiot — we  are  again  borrowing  from  Sally — and  now 
the  Idiot  would  have  to  glare  round  over  his  shoulder  at  her  or 
go  without!  It  was  soon  evident  that  he  was  quite  content  to 
go  without,  and  that  Sally  herself  had  been  his  lode-star.  The 
certainty  of  this  was  what  prevented  her  taking  so  much  notice 
of  her  mother  as  she  might  otherwise  have  done. 

Had  she  done  so  closely,  she  would  hardly  have  put  down  her 
preoccupation,  or  tension,  or  whatever  it  was,  to  displeasure  at 
Mr.  Fenwick's  going  to  skate  on  Christmas  morning  instead  of 
going  to  church.  What  concern  was  it  of  theirs  what  Mr.  Fen- 
wick  did? 


CHAPTER  VI 

OF    BOXING  DAY    MORNING    AT    KRAKATOA    VILLA,    AND    WHAT    OBSERVANT 
CREATURES  FOSSILS  ARE 

THE  "dear  old  fossil"  referred  to  by  Miss  Sally  was  one  of 
those  occurrences — auxiliaries  or  encumbrances,  as  may  be — 
whom  one  is  liable  to  meet  with  in  almost  any  family,  who  are 
so  forcibly  taken  for  granted  by  all  its  members  that  the  infec- 
tion of  their  acceptance  catches  on,  and  no  new-comer  ever 
asks  that  they  should  be  explained.  If  they  were  relatives,  they 
would  be  easy  of  explanation;  but  the  only  direct  information 
you  ever  get  about  them  is  that  they  are  not.  This  seems  to 
block  all  avenues  of  investigation,  and  presently  you  find  your- 
self taking  them  as  a  matter  of  course,  like  the  Lion  and  Unicorn, 
or  the  image  on  a  stamp. 

Fenwick  accepted  "the  Major,"  as  the  old  fossil  was  called, 
so  frankly  and  completely  under  that  name  that  he  was  still 
uncertain  about  his  real  designation  at  the  current  moment  of 
the  story.  Nobody  ever  called  him  anything  but  "the  Major," 
and  he  would  as  soon  have  asked  "Major  what?"  as  called  in 
question  the  title  of  the  King  of  Hearts  instead  of  playing  him 
on  the  Queen,  and  taking  the  trick.  So  far  as  he  could  conjec- 
ture, the  Major  had  accepted  him  in  the  same  way.  When  the 
railway  adventure  was  detailed  to  him,  the  fossil  said  many 
times,  "How  perfectly  extraordinary!"  "God  bless  my  soul!" 
"You  don't  mean  that!"  and  so  on;  but  his  astonishment  always 
knocked  his  double  eyeglass  off,  and,  when  he  couldn't  find  it, 
it  had  to  be  recovered  before  he  could  say,  "Eh — eh — what  was 
that?"  and  get  in  line  again;  so  he  made  a  disjointed  listener. 

But  these  fossils  see  more  than  they  hear  sometimes;  and 
this  old  Major,  for  all  he  was  so  silent,  must  have  noticed  many 
little  things  that  Christmas  evening  to  cause  him  to  say  what 
he  did  next  day  to  Sally.  For,  of  course,  the  Major  couldn't 
go  back  to  his  lodgings  in  Ball  Street  in  weather  like  this;  so 

58 


54  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

he  stayed  the  night  in  the  spare  room,  where  Mr.  Fenwick  had 
been  put  up  tempory,  cook  said — a  room  which  was,  in  fact, 
usually  spoken  of  as  "the  Major's  room." 

Of  course,  Sally  was  the  sort  of  girl  who  would  never  see  any- 
thing of  that  sort — you'll  see  what  sort  directly — though  she 
was  as  sharp  as  a  razor  in  a  general  way.  What  made  her  blind 
in  this  case  was  that,  in  certain  things,  aspects,  relations  of  life, 
she  had  ruled  mother  out  of  court  as  an  intrinsically  grown- 
up person — one  to  whom  some  speculations  would  not  apply. 
So  she  saw  nothing  in  the  fact  that  when  Mr.  Fenwick's  knock 
came  at  the  door,  her  mother  said,  "There  he  is,"  and  went  out 
to  meet  him ;  nor  even  in  her  stopping  with  him  outside  on  the 
landing,  chatting  confidentially  and  laughing.  Why  shouldn't 
she? 

She  saw  nothing — nothing  whatever — in  Mr.  Fenwick's  bring- 
ing her  mother  a  beautiful  sealskin  jacket  as  a  Christmas  present. 
Why  shouldn't  he  ?  The  only  thing  that  puzzled  Sally  was,  where 
on  earth  did  he  get  the  money  to  buy  it?  But  then,  of  course, 
he  was  "in  the  City,"  and  the  City  is  a  sort  of  Tom  Tiddler's 
ground.  Sally  found  that  enough,  on  reflection. 

She  saw  nothing,  either,  in  her  mother's  carrying  her  present 
away  upstairs,  and  saying  nothing  about  it  till  afterwards.  Nor 
did  she  notice  any  abnormal  satisfaction  on  Mr.  Fenwick's 
countenance  as  he  came  into  the  drawing-room  by  himself,  such 
as  one  might  discern  in  a  hen — if  hens  had  countenances — after 
a  special  egg.  Nor  did  she  attach  any  particular  meaning  to 
an  expression  on  the  elderly  face  of  the  doctor's  mother  that 
any  student  of  Lavater  would  at  once  have  seen  to  mean  that 
we  saw  what  was  going  on,  but  were  going  to  be  maternally 
discreet  about  it,  and  only  mention  it  to  every  one  we  met  in 
the  very  strictest  confidence.  This  lady,  who  had  rather  reluc- 
tantly joined  the  party — for  she  was  a  martyr  to  ailments — was 
somewhat  grudgingly  admitted  by  Sally  to  be  a  comfortable  sort 
of  old  thing  enough,  if  only  she  didn't  "goozle"  over  you  so. 
She  had  no  locus  standi  for  goozling,  whatever  it  was;  for  had 
not  Sally  as  good  as  told  her  son  that  she  didn't  want  to  marry 
him  or  anybody  else?  If  you  ask  us  what  would  be  the  con- 
necting link  between  Sally's  attitude  towards  the  doctor  and  the 
goozlings  of  a  third  party,  we  have  no  answer  ready. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  55 

No ;  Sally  went  to  bed  as  wise  as  ever — so  she  afterwards  told 
the  fossil  Major — at  the  end  of  the  evening.  She  had  enjoyed 
herself  immensely,  though  the  simple  material  for  rapture  was 
only  foursquare  Halma  played  by  the  four  acuter  intelligences 
of  the  six,  and  draughts  for  the  goozler  and  the  fossil.  But 
then  Sally  had  a  rare  faculty  for  enjoying  herself,  and  she  was 
perfectly  contented  with  only  one  admirer  to  torment,  though  he 
was  only  old  Prosy,  as  she  called  him,  but  not  to  his  face.  She 
was  jolly  glad  mother  had  put  on  her  maroon-coloured  watered 
silk  with  velvet  facings,  because  you  couldn't  deny  that  she 
looked  lovely  in  it.  And  as  for  Mr.  Fenwick,  he  looked  just 
like  Hercules  and  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  after  being  out  skating 
all  day  long  in  the  cold.  And  Sally's  wisdom  had  not  been  in 
the  least  increased  by  what  was,  after  all,  only  a  scientific  experi- 
ment on  poor  Mr.  Fenwick's  mental  torpor  when  her  mother, 
the  goozler  and  old  Prosy  having  departed,  got  out  her  music  to 
sing  that  very  old  song  of  hers  to  him  that  he  had  thought  the 
other  day  seemed  to  bring  back  a  sort  of  memory  of  something. 
Was  it  not  possible  that  if  he  heard  it  often  enough  his  past 
might  revive  slowly  ?  You  never  could  tell ! 

So  when,  on  Boxing  Day  morning,  Sally's  mother,  who  had 
got  down  early  and  hurried  her  breakfast  to  make  a  dash  for 
early  prayer  at  St.  Satisfax,  looked  in  at  her  backward  daughter 
and  reproached  her,  and  said  there  was  the  Major  coming  down, 
and  no  one  to  get  him  his  chocolate,  she  spoke  to  a  young  lady 
who  was  serenely  unprepared  for  any  revelations  of  a  startling 
nature,  or,  indeed,  any  revelations  at  all.  Nor  did  getting  the 
Major  his  chocolate  excite  any  suspicions. 

So  Sally  was  truly  taken  aback  when  the  old  gentleman,  having 
drunk  his  chocolate,  broke  a  silence  which  had  lasted  since  a 
brief  and  fossil-like  good-morning,  with,  "Well,  missy,  and  what 
do  you  say  to  the  idea  of  a  stepfather?"  But  not  immediately, 
for  at  first  she  didn't  understand  him,  and  answered  placidly :  "It 
depends  on  who." 

"Mr.  Fenwick,  for  instance!" 

"Yes,  but  who  for?  And  stepfather  to  step- what?  Step- 
daughter or  stepson?" 

"Yourself,  little  goose!     You  would  be  the  stepdaughter." 

Sally  was  then  so  taken  abaci:  that  she  could  make  nothing  of 


56  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

it,  but  stood  in  a  cloud  of  mystification.  The  major  had  to 
help  her.  "How  would  you  like  your  mother  to  marry  Mr. 
Fenwick?"  He  was  one  of  those  useful  people  who  never  finesse, 
who  let  you  know  point-blank  where  you  are,  and  to  whom  you 
feel  so  grateful  for  being  unfeeling.  While  others  there  be  who 
keep  you  dancing  about  in  suspense,  while  they  break  things 
gently,  and  all  the  while  are  scoring  up  a  little  account  against 
you  for  considerateness. 

Sally's  bewilderment,  however,  recognised  one  thing  distinctly 
— that  the  Major's  inquiry  was  not  to  get,  but  to  give,  infor- 
mation. He  didn't  the  least  want  to  know  what  she  thought ; 
he  was  only  working  to  give  her  a  useful  tip.  So  she  would  take 
her  time  about  answering.  She  took  it,  looking  as  grave  as  a 
little  downy  owl-tot.  Meanwhile,  to  show  there  was  no  bad  feel- 
ing, she  went  and  sat  candidly  on  the  fossil's  knee,  and  attended 
to  his  old  whiskers  and  moustache. 

"Major  dear!"  said  she  presently. 

"What,  my  child?" 

"Wouldn't  they  make  an  awfully  handsome  couple?"  The 
Major  replied,  "Handsome  is  as  handsome  does,"  and  seemed  to 
suggest  that  questions  of  this  sort  belonged  to  a  pre-fossilised 
condition  of  existence. 

"Now,  Major  dear,  why  not  admit  it  when  you  know  it's 
true?  You  know  quite  well  they  would  make  a  lovely  couple. 
Just  fancy  them  going  up  the  aisle  at  St.  Satisfax!  It  would 
be  like  medieval  Kings  and  Queens."  For  Sally  was  still  in  that 
happy  phase  of  girlhood  in  which  a  marriage  is  a  wedding,  et 
prceterea  aliquid,  but  not  much.  "But,"  she  continued,  "I 
couldn't  give  up  any  of  mamma — no,  not  so  much  as  that — if 
she  was  to  marry  twenty  Mr.  Fenwicks."  As  the  quantity  indi- 
cated was  the  smallest  little  finger-end  that  could  be  checked 
off  with  a  thumb-nail,  the  twenty  husbands  would  have  come 
in  for  a  very  poor  allowance  of  matrimony.  The  Major  didn't 
seem  to  think  the  method  of  estimation  supplied  a  safe  ground 
for  discussion,  and  allowed  it  to  lapse. 

"I  may  be  quite  wrong,  you  know,  my  dear,"  said  he.  "I 
dare  say  I'm  only  an  old  fool.  So  we  won't  say  anything  to 
mamma,  will  us,  little  woman?" 

"I  don't  know,  Major  dear.    I'll  promise  not  to  say  anything 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  57 

to  her  because  of  what  you've  said  to  me.  But  if  I  suspect  it 
myself  on  my  account  later  on,  of  course  I  shall." 

"What  shall  you  say  to  her?" 

"Ask  her  if  it's  true!  Why  not?  But  what  was  it  made 
you  think  so?"  Whereon  the  Major  gave  in  detail  his  impres- 
sions of  the  little  incidents  recorded  above,  which  Sally  had  seen 
nothing  in.  He  laid  a  good  deal  of  stress  on  the  fact  that  her 
mother  had  suppressed  the  Christmas  present  until  after  Dr. 
Vereker  and  his  mother  had  departed.  She  wouldn't  have 
minded  the  doctor,  he  said,  but  she  would  naturally  want  to  keep 
the  old  bird  out  of  the  swim.  Besides,  there  was  Fenwick  him- 
self— one  could  see  what  he  thought  of  it !  She  could  perfectly 
well  stop  him  if  she  chose,  and  she  didn't  choose. 

"Stop  his  whatting?"  asked  Sally  perplexingly.  But  she 
admitted  the  possibility  of  an  answer  by  not  pressing  the  question 
home.  Then  she  went  on  to  say  that  all  these  things  had  hap- 
pened exactly  under  her  nose,  and  she  had  never  seen  anything 
in  them.  The  only  concession  she  was  inclined  to  make  was  in 
respect  of  the  impression  her  mother  evidently  made  on  Mr. 
Fenwick.  But  that  was  nothing  wonderful.  Anything  else 
would  have  been  very  surprising.  Only  it  didn't  follow  from 
that  that  mother  wanted  to  marry  Mr.  Fenwick,  or  Mr.  Anybody. 
As  far  as  he  himself  went,  she  liked  him  awfully — but  then  he 
couldn't  recollect  who  he  was,  poor  fellow !  It  was  most  pathetic 
sometimes  to  see  him  trying.  If  only  he  could  have  remembered 
that  he  hadn't  been  a  pirate,  or  a  forger,  or  a  wicked  Marquis! 
But  to  know  absolutely  nothing  at  all  about  himself!  Why, 
the  only  thing  that  was  known  now  about  his  past  life  was  that 
he  once  knew  a  Rosalind  Nightingale — what  he  said  to  her  in 
the  railway-carriage.  And  now  he  had  forgotten  that,  too,  like 
everything  else. 

"I  say,  Major  dear" — Sally  has  an  influx  of  a  new  idea — 
"it  ought  to  be  possible  to  find  out  something  about  that  Rosa- 
lind Nightingale  he  knew.  Mamma  says  it's  nonsense  her  being 
any  relation,  because  she'd  know." 

"And  suppose  we  did  find  out  who  she  was?" 

"Well,  then,  if  we  could  get  at  her,  we  might  get  her  to  tell 
us  who  he  was.  And  then  we  could  tell  him;" 

Perhaps  it  is  only  his  fossil-like  way  of  treating  the  subject, 


58  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

but  certainly  the  Major  shows  a  very  slack  interest,  Sally  thinks, 
in  the  identity  of  this  namesake  of  hers.  He  does,  however,  ask 
absently,  what  sort  of  way  did  he  speak  of  her  in  the  train  ? 

"Why— he  said  so  little " 

"But  he  gave  you  some  impression?" 

"Oh,  of  course.  He  spoke  as  if  she  was  a  person — not  a  female 
you  know — a  person!" 

"A  person  isn't  a  female — when?  Eh,  missy?"  This  re- 
quires a  little  consideration,  and  gets  it.  The  result,  when  it 
comes,  seems  good  in  its  author's  eyes. 

"When  they  sit  down.  When  you  ask  them  to,  you  know.  In 
the  parlour,  I  mean — not  the  hall.  They  might  be  a  female 
then." 

"Did  he  mean  a  lady?" 

"And  take  milk  and  no  sugar  ?  And  pull  her  gloves  on  to  go  ? 
And  leave  cards  turned  up  at  the  corner?  Oh  no — not  a  lady, 
certainly !" 

As  she  makes  these  instructive  distinctions,  Miss  Sally  is  kneel- 
ing on  a  hassock  before  a  mature  fire,  which  will  tumble  down 
and  spoil  presently.  When  it  does  it  will  be  time  to  resort  to 
that  hearth-broom,  and  restrict  combustion  with  collected  caput- 
mortuum  of  Derby-Brights,  selected,  twenty-seven  shillings.  Till 
then,  Sally,  who  deserted  the  Major's  knee  just  as  she  asked  what 
Mr.  Fenwick  was  to  stop  in,  is  at  liberty  to  roast,  and  does  so 
with  undisturbed  gravity.  The  Major  is  becoming  conscious 
of  a  smell  like  Joan  of  Arc  at  the  beginning  of  the  entertain- 
ment, when  her  mother  comes  in  on  a  high  moral  platform,  and 
taxes  her  with  singeing,  and  dissolves  the  parliament,  and  rings 
to  take  away  breakfast,  and  forecasts  an  open  window  the  minute 
the  Major  has  gone. 

Sally  doesn't  wait  for  the  open  window,  but  as  one  recalled  to 
the  active  duties  of  life  from  liquefaction  in  a  Turkish  bath, 
takes  a  cold  plunge  as  far  as  the  front  gate  without  so  much  as  a 
hat  on — to  see  if  the  post  is  coming,  which  is  absurd — and  comes 
back  braced.  But  though  she  only  wonders  what  can  have  put 
such  an  idea  as  her  mother  marrying  Mr.  Fenwick  in  the  Major's 
dear  silly  old  head,  she  keeps  on  a  steady  current  of  speculation 
about  who  that  Eosalind  Nightingale  he  knew  could  possibly 
have  been;  and  whether  she  couldn't  be  got  at  even 'now.  It 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  59 

was  Buch  a  pity  he  couldn't  have  a  tip  given  about  him  who  he 
was.  If  he  were  once  started,  he  would  soon  run;  she  was  sure 
of  that.  But  did  he  want  to  run  ? — that  was  a  point  to  consider. 
Did  he  really  forget  as  much  as  he  said  he  did  ?  How  came  he 
not  to  have  forgotten  his  languages  he  was  so  fluent  with?  And 
how  about  his  book-keeping?  And  that  curious  way  he  had  of 
knowing  about  places,  and  then  looking  puzzled  when  asked 
Avhen  he  had  been  there.  When  they  talked  about  Klondyke  the 
other  day,  for  instance,  and  he  seemed  to  know  so  much  about  it 
.  .  .  But,  then,  see  how  he  grasped  his  head,  and  ruffled  his 
hair,  and  shut  his  eyes,  and  clenched  his  teeth  over  his  efforts  to 
recollect  whether  he  had  really  been  there  himself,  or  only  read 
it  all  in  the  "Century"  or  "Atlantic  Monthly" !  Surely  he  was 
in  earnest  then. 

Sally's  speculations  lasted  her  all  the  way  to  No.  260,  Lad- 
broke  Grove  Road,  where  she  was  going  to  a  music-lesson,  or 
rather  music-practice,  with  a  friend  who  played  the  violin;  for 
Sally  was  learning  the  viola — to  be  useful. 


CHAPTEK  VII 

CONCERNING  PEOPLE'S  PASTS,  AND  THE  SEPARATION  OF  THE  SHEEP  FROM 
THE  GOATS.  OF  YET  ANOTHER  MAJOR,  AND  HOW  HE  GOSSIPPED  AT 
THE  HURKARU  CLUB.  SOME  TRUSTWORTHY  INFORMATION  ABOUT  AN 
ALLEGED  DIVORCE 

_You  who  read  this  may  have  met  with  some  cross-chance  such 
as  we  are  going  to  try  to  describe  to  you;  possibly  with  the 
same  effect  upon  yourself  as  the  one  we  have  to  confess  to  in  our 
own  case — namely,  that  you  have  been  left  face  to  face  with  a 
problem  to  which  you  have  never  been  able  to  supply  a  solution. 
You  have  given  up  a  conundrum  in  despair,  and  no  one  has  told 
you  the  answer. 

Here  are  the  particulars  of  an  imaginary  case  of  the  sort. 
You  have  made  acquaintance — made  friends — years  ago  with 
some  man  or  woman  without  any  special  introduction,  and  with- 
out feeling  any  particular  curiosity  about  his  or  her  antecedents. 
No  inquiry  seemed  to  be  called  for;  all  concomitants  were  so 
very  usual.  You  may  have  felt  a  misgiving  as  to  whether  the 
easy-going  ways  of  your  old  papa,  or  the  innocent  Bohemianisms 
of  his  sons  and  daughters  will  be  welcome  to  your  new  friend, 
whom  you  credit  with  being  a  little  old-fashioned  and  strait- 
laced,  if  anything.  But  it  never  occurs  to  you  to  doubt  or  in- 
vestigate; why  should  you,  when  no  question  is  raised  of  any 
great  intimacy  between  you  and  the  So-and-sos,  which  may 
stand  for  the  name  of  his  or  her  family.  They  ask  no  certificate 
from  you,  of  whom  they  know  just  as  little.  Why  should  you 
demand  credentials  of  a  passer-by  because  he  is  so  obliging  as 
to  offer  to  lend  you  a  Chinese  vocabulary  or  Whitaker?  Why 
should  your  wife  try  to  go  behind  the  cheque-book  and  the  prayer- 
book  of  a  married  couple  when  all  she  has  had  to  do  with  the 
lady  was,  suppose,  to  borrow  a  square  bottle  of  her,  marked 
off  in  half-inch  lengths,  to  be  shaken  before  taken?  Why  not 
accept  her  unimpeachable  Sunday  morning  as  sufficient  warranty 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  61 

for  talking  to  her  on  the  beach  next  day,  and  finding  what  a  very 
nice  person  she  is?  Because  it  would  very  likely  be  at  the  sea- 
side. But  suppose  any  sort  of  introduction  of  this  sort — you 
know  what  we  mean ! 

Well,  the  So-and-sos  have  slipped  gradually  into  your  life; 
let  this  be  granted.  We  need  not  imagine,  for  our  purpose,  any 
extreme  approaches  of  family  intimacy,  any  love  affairs  or  deadly 
quarrels.  A  tranquil  intercourse  of  some  twenty  years  is  all  we 
need,  every  year  of  which  has  added  to  your  conviction  of  the 
thorough  trustworthiness  and  respectability  of  the  So-and-sos, 
of  their  readiness  to  help  you  in  any  little  difficulty,  and  of  the 
high  opinion  which  the  rest  of  the  world  has  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
So-and-so — the  world  which  knew  them  when  it  was  a  boy,  and 
all  their  connexions  and  antecedents,  which,  you  admit,  you 
didn't.  .  .  . 

And  then,  after  all  these  years,  it  is  suddenly  burst  upon  you 
that  there  was  a  shady  story  about  So-and-so  that  never  was 
cleared  up — something  about  money,  perhaps;  or,  worse  still, 
one  of  those  stories  your  informant  really  doesn't  like  to  be  re- 
sponsible for  the  particulars  of;  you  must  ask  Smith  yourself. 
Or  your  wife  comes  to  you  in  fury  and  indignation  that  such  a 
scandalous  falsehood  should  have  got  about  as  that  Clara  So-and- 
so  was  never  married  to  So-and-so  at  all  till  ever  so  long  after 
Fluffy  or  Toppy  or  Croppy  or  Poppy  was  born !  We  take  any 
names  at  random  of  this  sort,  merely  to  dwell  on  your  good  lady's 
familiarity  with  the  So-and-so  family. 

Well,  then — there  you  are!  And  what  can  you  make  of  it? 
There  you  are  face  to  face  with  the  fact  that  a  man  who  was  a 
black  sheep  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago  has  been  all  this  time 
making  believe  to  be  a  white  sheep  so  successfully  as  never  was. 
Or,  stranger  still,  that  a  woman  who  has  brought  up  a  family  of 
model  daughters — daughters  whom  it  would  be  no  exaggeration 
to  speak  of  as  on  all  fours  with  your  own,  and  who  is  quite  one  of 
the  nicest  and  most  sympathetic  people  your  wife  has  to  go  to 
in  trouble — this  woman  actually — actually — if  this  tale  is  true, 
was  guilty  in  her  youth  .  .  .  there — that  will  do!  Suppose  we 
say  she  was  no  better  than  she  should  be.  She  hadn't  even 
the  decency  to  be  a  married  woman  before  she  did  it,  which  al- 
ways makes  it  so  much  easier  to  talk  to  strange  ladies  and  girls 


62  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

about  it.  You  can  say  all  the  way  down  a  full  dinner-table  that 
Lady  Polly  Andrews  got  into  the  Divorce  Court  without  doing 
violence  to  any  propriety  at  all.  But  the  story  of  Mrs.  So- 
and-so's  indiscretion  while  still  Miss  Such-and-such  must  be 
talked  of  more  guardedly. 

And  all  the  while  behold  the  subjects  of  these  stories,  in  whom, 
but  for  this  sudden  revelation  of  a  shady  past,  you  can  detect 
no  moral  difference  from  your  amiable  and  respectable  self! 
They  puzzle  you,  as  they  puzzle  us,  with  a  doubt  whether  they 
really  are  the  same  people;  whether  they  have  not  changed  their 
identity  since  the  days  of  their  delinquency.  If  they  really  are 
the  same,  it  almost  throws  a  doubt  on  how  far  the  permanent 
unf orgiveness  of  sins  is  expedient.  We  of  course  refer  to  Human 
Expediency  only — the  construction  of  a  working  hypothesis  of 
Life,  that  would  favour  peace  on  earth  and  good-will  towards 
men;  that  would  establish  a  modus  vivendi,  and  enable  us  to  be 
jolly  with  these  reprobates — at  any  rate,  as  soon  as  they  had 
served  their  time  and  picked  their  oakum.  We  are  not  intruding 
on  the  province  of  the  Theologian — merely  discussing  the  prob- 
lem of  how  we  can  make  ourselves  pleasant  to  one  another  all 
round,  until  that  final  separation  of  the  sheep  from  the  goats, 
when,  however  carefully  they  may  have  patched  up  their  own 
little  quarrels,  they  will  have  to  bid  each  other  farewell  reluc- 
tantly, and  make  up  their  minds  to  the  permanent  endurance  of 
Heaven  and  Hell  respectively. 

We  confess  that  we  ourselves  think  there  ought  to  be  a  Statute 
of  Limitations,  and  that  after  a  certain  lapse  of  time  any  offence, 
however  bad,  against  morality  might  be  held  not  to  have  been 
committed.  If  we  feel  this  about  culprits  who  tempted  us,  at 
the  time  of  their  enormity,  to  put  in  every  honest  hand  a  whip 
to  lash  the  rascal  naked  the  length  of  a  couple  of  lamp-posts,  how 
much  more  when  the  offence  has  been  one  which  our  own  sense 
of  moral  law  (a  perverted  one,  we  admit)  scarcely  recognises  as 
any  offence  at  all.  And  how  much  more  yet,  when  we  find  it 
hard  to  believe  that  they — actually  they  themselves,  that  we  know 
now — can  have  done  the  things  imputed  to  them.  If  the  stories 
are  really  true,  were  they  not  possessed  by  evil  spirits?  Or  have 
they  since  come  to  be  possessed  by  better  ones  than  their  normal 
stock-in-trade  ? 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  63 

What  is  all  this  prosy  speculation  about?  Well,  it's  about 
our  friend  in  the  last  chapter,  Sally's  mother.  At  least,  it  is 
suggested  by  her.  She  is  one  of  those  perplexing  cases  we  have 
hinted  at,  and  we  acknowledge  ourselves  unable  to  account  for 
her  at  the  date  of  the  story,  knowing  what  we  do  of  her  twenty 
years  previously.  It's  little  enough,  mind,  and  much  of  it  in- 
ferential. Suppose,  instead  of  giving  you  our  inferences,  we 
content  ourselves  with  passing  on  to  you  the  data  on  which  we 
found  them.  Maybe  you  will  see  your  way  to  some  different  life- 
history  for  Sally's  mother. 

The  first  insight  we  had  into  her  past  was  supplied  by  a  friend 
of  Sally's  "old  fossil,"  who  was  himself  a  Major,  but  with  a 
difference.  For  he  was  really  a  Major,  whereas  the  fossil  was 
only  called  so  by  Krakatoa  Villa,  being  in  truth  a  Colonel.  This 
one  was  Major  Roper,  of  the  Hurkaru  Club,  an  old  schoolfellow 
of  ours,  who  was  giving  us  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  cigar  at  the 
said  Club,  and  talking  himself  hoarse  about  Society.  When 
the  Major  gets  hoarse  his  voice  rises  to  a  squeak,  and  his  eyes 
start  out  of  his  head,  and  he  appears  to  swell.  I  forget  how  Mrs. 
Nightingale  came  into  the  conversation,  but  she  did,  somehow. 

"She's  a  very  charming  woman,  that,"  squeaked  the  Major — 
"a  very  charming  woman !  I  don't  mind  tellin'  you,  you  know, 
that  I  knew  her  at  Madras — ah !  before  the  divorce.  I  wouldn't 
tell  Horrocks,  nor  that  dam  young  fool  Silcox,  but  I  don't  mind 
tellin'  you!  Only,  look  here,  my  dear  boy,  don't  you  go  puttin' 
it  about  that  /  told  you  anythin'.  YQU  know  I  make  it  a  rule — 
a  guidin'  rule — never  to  say  anythin'.  You  follow  that  rule 
through  life,  my  boy !  Take  the  word  of  an  old  chap  that's  seen 
a  deal  of  service,  and  just  you  hold  your  tongue!  You  make  a 

point — you'll  find  it  pay "  An  asthmatic  cough  came  in 

here. 

"There  was  a  divorce,  then  ?"  we  said.  Terms  had  to  be  made 
with  the  cough,  but  speech  came  in  the  end. 

"Oh  yes,  of  course — of  course !  Don't  mind  repeatin'  that — 
thing  was  in  the  papers  at  the  time.  What  I  was  suggestin' 
holdin'  your  tongue  about  was  that  story  about  Penderfield  and 
her.  .  .  .  Well,  as  I  said  just  now,  I  don't  mind  repeatin'  it  to 
you;  you  ain't  Horrocks  nor  little  Silcox — you  can  keep  your 
tongue  in  your  head.  Remember,  /  know  nothing;  I'm  only 


64  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

tellin'  what  was  said  at  the  time.  .  .  .  Now,  whatever  was  her 
name?  Was  it  Rayner,  or  was  it  Verschoyle?  Pelloo!  .  .  . 
Pelloo!  .  .  ."  The  Major  tried  to  call  the  attention  of  a  man 
who  was  deep  in  an  Oriental  newspaper  at  the  far  end  of  the  next 
room.  But  when  the  Major  overstrains  his  voice,  it  misses  fire 
like  a  costermonger's,  and  only  a  falsetto  note  comes  on  a  high 
register.  When  this  happens  he  is  wroth. 

"It's  that  dam  noise  they're  all  makin',"  he  says,  as  soon  as 
he  has  become  articulate.  "That's  the  man  I  want,  behind  the 
'Daily  Sunderbund.'  If  it  wasn't  for  this  dam  toe,  I'd  go  across 
and  ask  him.  No,  don't  you  go.  Send  one  of  these  dam  jumpin' 
frogs — idlin'  about !"  He  requisitions  a  passing  waiter,  gripping 
him  by  the  arm  to  give  him  instructions.  "Just — you — touch 
the  General's  arm,  and  ketch  his  attention.  Say  Major  Eoper." 
And  he  liquidates  his  obligations  to  a  great  deal  of  asthmatic 
cough,  while  the  jumping  frog  does  his  bidding. 

The  General  (who  is  now  Lord  Pellew  of  Cutch,  by-the-bye) 
came  with  an  amiable  smile  from  behind  the  journal,  and  ended 
a  succession  of  good-evening  nods  to  newcomers  by  casting  an 
anchor  opposite  the  Major.  The  latter,  having  by  now  taken  the 
surest  steps  towards  bringing  the  whole  room  into  his  confidence, 
stated  the  case  he  sought  confirmation  for. 

Oh  yes,  certainly ;  the  General  was  in  Umballa  in  '80 ;  remem- 
bered the  young  lady  quite  well,  and  the  row  between  Fender- 
field  and  his  wife  about  her.  As  for  Penderfield,  everybody 
remembered  him!  De  mortuis  nil,  etc. — of  course,  of  course. 
For  all  that,  he  was  one  of  the  damnedest  scoundrels  that  ever 
deserved  to  be  turned  out  of  the  service.  Ought  to  have  been 
cashiered  long  ago.  Good  job  he's  gone  to  the  devil!  Yes, 
he  was  quite  sure  he  was  remembering  the  right  girl.  No,  no, 
he  wasn't  thinking  of  Daisy  Neversedge — no,  nor  of  little  Miss 
Wrennick :  same  sort  of  story,  but  he  wasn't  thinking  of  them  at 
all.  Only  the  name  wasn't  either  Eayner  or  Verschoyle.  Gen- 
eral Pellew  stood  thoughtfully  feeling  about  in  a  memory  at 
fault,  and  looking  at  an  unlighted  cigar  he  rolled  in  his  fingers, 
as  though  it  might  help  if  caressed.  Then  he  had  a  flash  of  illu- 
mination. "Rosalind  Graythorpe,"  he  said. 

There  we  had  it,  sure  enough !  The  Major  see-sawed  in  the 
air  with  a  finger  of  sudden  corroboration.  "Rosalind  Gray- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  65 

9 

thorpe,"  he  repeated  triumphantly,  and  then  again,  "Ros-a-lind 
Graythorpe,"  dwelling  on  the  syllables,  and  driving  the  name 
home,  as  it  were,  to  the  apprehension  of  all  within  hearing.  It 
was  so  necessary  to  a  complete  confidence  that  every  one  should 
know  whom  he  was  holding  his  tongue  about.  Where  would  be 
the  merit  of  discretion  else?  But  the  enjoyment  of  details 
should  be  sotto  voce.  The  General  dropped  his  voice  to  a  good 
sample,  suggesting  a  like  course  to  the  more  demonstrative 
secrecy  of  the  Major. 

"I  remember  the  whole  story  quite  well,"  said  he.  "The 
girl  was  going  out  by  herself  to  marry  a  young  fellow  up  the 
country  at  Umballa,  I  think.  They  were  fiances,  and  on  the 
way  the  news  came  of  the  outbreak  of  cholera.  So  she  got  hung 
up  for  a  while  at  Penderfield's — sort  of  cousin,  I  believe,  him  or 
his  wife — till  the  district  was  sanitary  again.  Bad  job  for  her, 
as  it  turned  out !  Nobody  there  to  warn  her  what  sort  of  fellow 
Penderfield  was — and  if  there  had  been  she  wouldn't  have  be- 
lieved 'em.  She  was  a  madcap  sort  of  a  girl,  and  regularly  in 
the  hands  of  about  as  bad  a  couple  as  you'll  meet  with  in  a 
long  spell — India  or  anywhere!  They  used  to  say  out  there 
that  the  she  Penderfield  winked  at  all  her  husband's  affairs  as 
long  as  he  didn't  cut  across  her  little  arrangements — did  more 
than  wink,  in  fact — lent  a  helping  hand ;  but  only  as  long  as  she 
could  rely  on  his  remaining  detached,  as  you  might  say.  The 
moment  she  suspected  an  eniichement  on  her  husband's  part  she 
was  up  in  arras.  And  he  was  just  the  same  about  her.  I  re- 
member Lady  Sharp  saying  that  if  Penderfield  had  suspected  his 
wife  of  caring  about  any  of  her  co-respondents  he  would  have 
divorced  her  at  once.  They  were  a  rum  couple,  but  their  attitude 
to  one  another  was  the  only  good  thing  about  them."  The 
General  lighted  his  cigar,  and  seemed  to  consider  this  was  chapter 
one.  The  Major  appended  a  foot-note,  for  our  benefit. 

"Leave  be  was  the  word — the  word  for  Penderfield.  You'll 
understand  that,  sir.  No  meddlin'!  A  good-lookin'  Colonel's 
wife  in  garrison  has  her  choice,  good  Lard!  Why,  she's  only 
got  to  hold  her  finger  up!"  We  entirely  appreciated  the  posi- 
tion, and  that  a  siren  has  a  much  easier  task  in  the  entanglement 
of  a  confiding  dragoon  than  falls  to  the  lot  of  Don  Giovanni 
in  the  reverse  case.  But  we  were  more  interested  in  the  par- 


66  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ticular  ftory  of  Mrs.  Nightingale  than  in  the  general  ethics  of 
profligacy. 

"I  suppose,"  we  suggested,  "that  the  young  woman  threat- 
ened to  be  a  formidable  rival,  as  there  was  a  row  ?"  Each  of  the 
officers  nodded  at  the  other,  and  said  that  was  about  it.  The 
Major  then  started  on  a  little  private  curriculum  of  nods  on  his 
own  account,  backed  by  a  half-closed  eye  of  superhuman  subtlety, 
and  added  once  or  twice  that  that  was  about  it.  We  inferred 
from  this  that  the  row  had  been  volcanic  in  character.  The 
Major  then  added,  repeating  the  air-sawing  action  of  his  fore- 
finger admonitorily,  "But  mind  you,  7  say  nothin'.  And  my  rec- 
ommendation to  you  is  to  say  nothin'  neither." 

"The  rest  of  the  story's  soon  told,"  said  the  General,  answering 
our  look  of  inquiry.  "Miss  Graythorpe  went  away  to  Umballa 
to  be  married.  It  was  all  gossip,  mind  you,  about  herself  and 
Penderfield.  But  gossip  always  went  one  way  about  any  girl 
he  was  seen  with.  I  have  my  own  belief;  so  has  Jack  Eoper." 
The  Major  underwent  a  perfect  convulsion  of  nods,  winks,  and 
acquiescence.  "Well,  she  went  away,  and  was  married  to  this 
young  shaver,  who  was  very  little  over  twenty.  He  wasn't  in 
the  service — civil  appointment,  I  think.  How  long  was  it, 
Major,  before  they  parted?  Do  you  recollect?" 

"Week — ten  days — month — six  weeks!  Couldn't  say.  They 
didn't  part  at  the  church  door ;  that's  all  I  could  say  for  certain. 
Tell  him  the  rest." 

"They  certainly  parted  very  soon,  and  people  told  all  sorts  of 
stories.  The  stories  got  fewer  and  clearer  when  it  came  out 
that  the  young  woman  was  in  the  family  way.  No  one  had  any 
right  th&n  to  ascribe  the  child  that  was  on  its  road  to  any  father 
except  the  young  man  she  had  fallen  out  with.  But  they  did — 
it  was  laid  at  Colonel  Penderfield's  door,  before  there  was  any 
sufficient  warrant.  However,  it  was  all  clear  enough  when  the 
child  was  born." 

"When  was  the  divorce?" 

"He  applied  for  a  divorce  a  twelvemonth  after  the  marriage. 
The  child  was  then  spoken  of  as  being  four  months  old.  My 
impression  is  he  did  not  succeed  in  getting  a  divorce." 

"Not  he,"  said  the  Major,  overtopping  the  General's  quiet, 
restrained  voice  with  his  falsetto.  "I  recollect  that,  bless  you! 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  67 

The  Court  commiserated  him,  but  couldn't  give  him  any  relief. 
So  he  made  a  bolt  of  it.  And  he's  never  been  heard  of  since,  as 
far  as  I  know." 

"What  did  the  mother  do?    Where  did  she  go?"  we  asked. 

"Well,  she  might  have  been  hard  put  to  it  to  know  what  to 
do.  But  she  met  with  old  Lund — Carrington  Lund,  you  know, 
not  Beauchamp;  he'd  a  civil  appointment  at  Umritsur — comes 
here  sometimes.  You  know  him?  She's  his  Rosey  he  talks 
about.  He  was  an  old  friend  of  her  father,  and  took  her  in  and 
protected  her — saw  her  through  it.  She  came  with  him  to  Eng- 
land. I  was  with  them  on  the  boat,  part  of  the  way.  Then 
she  took  the  name  of  Macnaghten,  I  believe.  The  young  hus- 
band's name  I  can't  remember  the  least.  But  it  wasn't  Mac- 
naghten." 

The  Major  squeaked  in  again : 

"No — nor  hers  neither!  Nightingale,  General — that's  the 
name  she  goes  by.  Friend  of  this  gentleman.  Very  charmin' 
person  indeed!  Introdooce  you?  And  a  very  charmin'  little 
daughter,  goin'  nineteen."  The  two  officers  interchanged 
glances  over  our  young  friend  Sally.  "She  was  a  nice  baby  on 
the  boat,"  said  the  General;  and  the  Major  chuckled  wheezily, 
and  hoped  she  didn't  take  after  her  father. 

We  left  him  to  the  tender  mercies  of  gout  and  asthma,  and  the 
enjoyment  of  a  sherry-cobbler  through  a  straw,  looking  rather 
too  fat  for  his  snuff-coloured  trousers  with  a  cord  outside,  and  his 
flowered  silk  waistcoat ;  but  very  much  too  fat  for  the  straw,  the 
slendcrness  of  which  was  almost  painful  by  contrast. 

Perhaps  you  will  see  from  this  why  we  hinted  at  the  outset  of 
this  chapter  why  Mrs.  Nightingale  was  a  conundrum  we  had 
given  up  in  despair,  of  which  no  one  had  told  us  the  answer. 
We  wanted  your  sympathy,  you  see,  and  to  get  it  have  given  you 
an  insight  into  the  way  our  information  was  gleaned.  Having 
given  you  this  sample,  we  will  now  return  to  simple  narrative 
of  what  we  know  of  the  true  story,  and  trouble  you  with  no 
further  details  of  how  we  came  by  it. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  ANTECEDENTS  OF  ROSALIND  NIGHTINGALE,  SALLY'S  MOTHER.  HOW 
BOTH  CAME  FROM  INDIA  TO  ENGLAND,  AND  TOOK  A  VILLA  ON  A  RE- 
PAIRING LEASE.  SOMEWHAT  OF  SALLY'S  UPBRINGING.  SOME  MORE 
ROPER  GOSSIP,  AND  A  CAT  LET  OUT  OF  A  BAG.  A  PIECE  OF  PRESENCE 
OF  MIND 

SALLY  GRAYTHORPE  (our  Mrs.  Nightingale)  was  the  daughter 
of  a  widowed  mother,  also  called  Sally,  the  name  in  both  cases 
being  (as  in  that  of  her  daughter  whom  we  know)  Rosalind,  not 
Sarah.  This  mother  married  en  secondes  noces  a  former  sweet- 
heart; it  had  been  a  case  of  a  match  opposed  by  parents  on  the 
ground  of  the  apparent  hopelessness  of  the  young  man's  pros- 
pects. Mr.  Paul  Nightingale,  however,  falsified  the  doleful  pre- 
dictions about  his  future  by  becoming  a  successful  leader-writer 
and  war  correspondent.  It  was  after  the  close  of  the  American 
Civil  War,  in  which  he  had  gained  a  good  deal  of  distinction, 
that  he  met  at  Saratoga  his  old  flame,  Mrs.  Graythorpe,  then  a 
widow  with  a  little  daughter  five  or  six  years  old.  Having  then 
no  wishes  to  consult  but  their  own,  and  no  reason  to  the  con- 
trary appearing,  they  were  married. 

They  did  not  find  the  States  a  pleasant  domicile  in  the  early 
days  following  the  great  war,  and  came  to  England.  The  little 
daughter  soon  became  like  his  own  child  to  Mr.  Paul  Nightin- 
gale, and  had  his  wish  been  complied  with  she  would  have  taken 
his  name  during  his  life.  But  her  mother  saw  no  reason,  appar- 
ently, for  extinguishing  Mr.  Graythorpe  in  toio,  and  she  re- 
mained Sally  Graythorpe. 

Miss  Graythorpe  was,  at  a  guess,  about  fifteen  when  her  step- 
father died.  Her  mother,  now  for  the  second  time  a  widow, 
must  have  been  very  comfortably  off,  as  she  had  an  income  of  her 
own  as  well  as  a  life-interest  in  her  late  husband's  invested 
savings,  which  was  unfettered  by  any  conditions  as  to  her  marry- 
ing again,  or  otherwise.  She  was  not  long  in  availing  herself 

68 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  69 

of  this  liberty ;  for  about  the  time  when  her  daughter  was  of  an 
age  to  be  engaged  on  her  own  account,  she  accepted  a  third  offer 
of  marriage — this  time  from  a  clergyman,  who,  like  herself,  had 
already  stood  by  the  death-beds  of  two  former  mates,  and  was 
qualified  to  sympathize  with  her  in  every  way,  including  com- 
fortable inheritances. 

But  the  young  Sally  Graythorpe  kicked  furiously  against  this 
new  arrangement.  It  was  an  insult  to  papa  (she  referred  to 
Mr.  Nightingale;  her  real  papa  was  a  negligible  factor),  and  she 
wouldn't  live  in  the  same  house  with  that  canting  old  hypocrite. 
She  would  go  away  straight  to  India,  and  marry  Gerry — he 
would  be  glad  enough  to  have  her — see  how  constant  the  dear 
good  boy  had  been!  Not  a  week  passed  but  she  got  a  letter. 
She  asked  her  mother  flatly  what  could  she  want  to  marry  again 
for  at  her  time  of  life  ?  And  such  a  withered  old  sow-thistle  as 
that!  Sub-dean,  indeed!  She  would  sub-dean  him!  In  fact, 
there  were  words,  and  the  words  almost  went  the  length  of  taking 
the  form  known  as  "language"  par  excellence.  The  fact  is,  this 
Sally  and  her  mother  never  did  get  on  together  well ;  it  wasn't  the 
least  like  her  subsequent  relation  with  our  special  Sally — Sally 
number  three — who  trod  on  Mr.  Fenwick  in  the  Twopenny  Tube. 

The  end  of  the  "words"  was  a  letter  to  Gerry,  a  liberal 
trousseau,  and  a  first-class  passage  out  by  P.  and  0.  The  young 
lady's  luggage  for  the  baggage-room  was  beautifully  stencilled 
"Care  of  Sir  Oughtred  Penderfield,  The  Residency,  Khopal." 
Perfectly  safe  in  his  keeping  no  doubt  it  would  have  been.  But, 
then,  that  might  have  been  true  also  of  luggage  if  consigned  to 
the  Devil.  If  the  tale  hinted  at  in  our  last  chapter  was  true,  its 
poor  little  headstrong,  inexperienced  heroine  would  have  been 
about  as  safe  with  the  latter. 

Anyhow,  this  club  gossip  supplies  all  the  broad  outline  of  the 
story;  and  it  is  a  story  we  need  not  dwell  on.  It  gives  us  no 
means  of  reconciling  the  like  of  the  Mrs.  Nightingale  we  know 
now  with  the  amount  of  dissimulation,  if  not  treachery,  she  must 
have  practised  on  an  unsuspicious  boy,  assuming  that  she  did,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  conceal  her  relation  with  Penderfield.  One 
timid  conjecture  we  have  is,  that  the  girl,  having  to  deal  with 
a  subject  every  accepted  phrase  relating  to  which  is  an  equivoca- 
tion or  an  hypocrisy,  really  found  it  impossible  to  make  her 


70  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

position  understood  by  a  lover  who  simply  idolized  the  ground  she 
trod  on.  Under  such  circumstances,  she  may  either  have  given 
up  the  attempt  in  despair,  or  jumped  too  quickly  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  she  had  succeeded  in  communicating  the  facts,  and 
had  been  met  half-way  by  forgiveness.  Put  yourself  in  her 
position,  and  resolve  in  your  mind  exactly  how  you  would  have 
gone  about  it — how  you  would  have  got  a  story  of  that  sort 
forced  into  the  mind  of  a  welcoming  lover ;  wedged  into  the  heart 
of  his  unsuspicious  rapture.  Or,  if  you  fancied  he  understood 
you,  and  no  storm  of  despairing  indignation  came,  think  how 
easy  it  would  be  to  persuade  yourself  you  had  done  your  duty  by 
the  facts,  and  might  let  the  matter  lapse !  Why  should  not  one 
woman  once  take  advantage  of  the  obscurities  of  decorum  so 
many  a  man  has  found  comforting  to  his  soul  during  confession 
of  sin,  when  pouring  his  revelations  into  an  ear  whose  owner's 
experience  of  life  has  not  qualified  her  to  understand  them. 
Think  of  the  difficulty  you  yourself  have  encountered  in  getting 
at  the  absolute  facts  in  some  delicate  concurrence  of  circum- 
stances in  this  connexion,  because  of  the  fundamental  impossi- 
bility of  getting  any  one,  man  or  woman,  to  speak  direct  truth ! 

Let  us  find  out,  or  construct,  all  the  excuses  we  can  for  poor 
Miss  Graythorpe.  Let  us  imagine  the  last  counsel  she  had  from 
the  only  one  of  her  own  sex  who  would  be  likely  to  know  anything 
of  the  matter — the  nefarious  partner  (if  the  Major's  surmise  was 
true)  in  the  crime  of  her  betrayer.  "You  are  making  a  fuss 
about  nothing.  Men  are  not  so  immaculate  themselves;  your 
Gerry  is  no  Joseph!  If  he  rides  the  high  horse  with  you,  just 
you  ask  him  what  he  had  to  say  to  Potiphar's  wife !  Oh,  we're 
not  so  strait-laced  out  here — bless  us  alive ! — as  we  are  in  Eng- 
land, or  pretend  to  be."  We  can  fancy  the  elegant  brute  say- 
ing it. 

All  our  surmises  bring  us  very  little  light,  though.  It  is  not 
that  we  are  at  such  a  loss  to  forgive  poor  Sally  Graythorpe  as  a 
mere  human  creature  we  know  nothing  about.  The  difficulty 
is  to  reconcile  what  she  seems  to  have  been  then  with  what  she 
is  now.  We  give  it  up. 

Only,  we  wish  to  remark  that  it  is  her  offence  against  her 
fiance  alone  that  we  find  it  hard  to  stomach.  As  to  her  relations 
with  Colonel  Penderfield,  we  can  say  nothing  without  full  partic- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  71 

ulars.  And  even  if  we  had  them,  and  they  bore  hard  upon  Miss 
Graythorpe,  our  mind  would  go  back  to  the  Temple  in  Jerusalem, 
and  a  morning  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago.  The  voice  that 
said  who  was  to  cast  the  first  stone  is  heard  no  more,  or  has 
merged  in  ritual.  But  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  are  with  us 
still,  and  quite  ready  to  do  the  pelting.  We  should  be  harder 
on  the  Colonel,  no  doubt,  with  our  prejudices;  only,  observe! 
he  isn't  brought  up  for  judgment.  He  never  is,  any  more  than 
the  other  party  was  that  day  in  Jerusalem.  But,  then,  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  were  male!  And  they  had  the  courage 
of  their  convictions — their  previous  convictions! — and  acted  on 
them  in  their  selection  of  the  culprit. 

Without  further  apology  for  retailing  conjecture  as  certainty, 
the  following  may  be  taken  as  substantially  the  story  of  this 
lady — we  do  not  know  whether  to  call  her  a  divorced  or  a  deserted 
wife — and  her  little  encumbrance. 

She  found  a  resource  in  her  trouble  in  the  person  of  this  old 
friend  of  her  stepfather  Paul  Nightingale,  Colonel  (at  that  time 
Major)  Lund.  This  officer  had  remained  on  in  harness  to  the 
unusual  age  of  fifty-eight,  but  it  was  a  civil  appointment  he  held ; 
he  had  retired  from  active  service  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
things.  It  was  probably  not  only  because  of  his  old  friendship 
for  her  stepfather,  but  because  the  poor  girl  told  him  her  un- 
varnished tale  in  full  and  he  believed  it,  that  he  helped  and  pro- 
tected her  through  the  critical  period  that  followed  her  parting 
from  her  husband;  found  her  a  domicile  and  seclusion,  and 
enlisted  on  her  behalf  the  sympathies  of  more  than  one  officer's 
wife  at  our  Sally's  birth-place — Umritsur,  if  Major  Roper  was 
right.  He  corresponded  with  her  mother  as  intercessor  and 
mediator,  but  that  good  lady  was  in  no  mood  for  mercy :  had  her 
daughter  not  told  her  that  she  was  too  old  to  think  of  marriage  ? 
Too  old !  And  had  she  not  called  her  venerable  sub-dean  a 
withered  old  sow-thistle?  She  could  forgive,  under  guarantees 
of  the  sinner's  repentance ;  for  had  not  her  Lord  enjoined  forgive- 
ness where  the  bail  tendered  was  sufficient?  Only,  so  many 
reservations  and  qualifications  occurred  in  her  interpretations 
of  the  Gospel  narrative  that  forgiveness,  diluted  out  of  all  knowl- 
edge, left  its  perpetrator  free  to  refuse  ever  to  see  its  victim 
again.  But  she  would  pray  for  her.  A  subdiaconal  application 


72  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

would  receive  attention;  that  was  the  suggestion  between  the 
lines. 

The  kind-hearted  old  soldier  pooh-poohed  her  first  letters. 
She  would  come  round  in  time.  Her  natural  good-feeling  would 
get  the  better  of  her  when  she  had  had  her  religious  fling.  He 
didn't  put  it  so — a  strict  old  Puritan  of  the  old  school — but  that 
was  Miss  Graythorpe's  gloss  in  her  own  mind  on  what  he  did  say. 
However,  her  mother  never  did  come  round.  She  cherished  her 
condemnation  of  her  daughter  to  the  end,  forgiving  her  again 
more  suo,  if  anything  with  increased  asperity,  on  her  death-bed. 

This  Colonel  Lund  is  (have  we  mentioned  this  before?)  the 
"old  fossil"  whom  we  have  seen  at  Krakatoa  Villa.  He  was 
usually  called  "the  Major"  there,  from  early  association.  He 
continued  to  foster  and  shelter  his  protegee  during  the  year 
following  the  arrival  of  our  own  particular  young  Sally  on  the 
scene,  saw  her  safely  through  her  divorce  proceedings,  and  then, 
when  he  finally  retired  from  his  post  as  deputy  commissioner  for 
the  Umritsur  district,  arranged  that  she  herself,  with  her  encum- 
brance and  an  ayah,  should  accompany  him  to  England.  His 
companion  travelled  as  Mrs.  Graythorpe,  and  Sally  junior  as 
Mrs.  Graythorpe's  baby.  She  was  excessively  popular  on  the 
voyage;  Sally  was  not  suffering  from  sea-sickness,  or  feeling 
apparently  the  least  embarrassed  by  the  recent  bar-sinister  in  her 
family.  She  courted  Society,  seizing  it  by  its  whiskers  or  its 
curls,  and  holding  on  like  grim  death.  She  endeavoured  suc- 
cessively to  get  into  the  Indian  Ocean,  the  Persian  Gulf,  the  Eed 
Sea,  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  Atlantic,  but  failed  in  every 
attempt,  and  was  finally  landed  at  Southampton  in  safety,  after 
a  resolute  effort  to  drag  the  captain,  who  was  six  feet  three  high 
and  weighed  twenty  stone,  ashore  by  his  beard.  She  was  greatly 
missed  on  the  remainder  of  the  voyage  (to  Bremen — the  boat 
was  a  German  boat)  by  a  family  of  Vons,  who  fortunately  never 
guessed  at  the  flaw  in  Sally's  extraction,  or  there's  no  knowing 
what  might  not  have  happened. 

But  the  arrival  was  too  late  for  her  poor  mother  to  utilise  her 
services  towards  a  reconciliation  with  her  own  offended  parent. 
A  sudden  attack  of  influenza,  followed  by  low  diet  on  high 
principles,  and  uncombated  by  timely  port  wine  and  tonics, 
had  been  followed  by  heart-failure,  and  the  sub-dean  was  left 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  73 

free  to  marry  again,  again.  Whether  he  did  BO  or  not  doesn't 
matter  to  us.  The  scheme  Mrs.  Graythorpe  had  been  dwelling 
on  with  pleasure  through  the  voyage  of  simply  dropping  her 
offspring  on  its  grandmother,  and  leaving  it  to  drive  a  coach  and 
six  through  the  letter's  Christian  forgiveness,  was  not  to  come 
to  pass.  She  found  herself  after  a  year  and  a  half  of  Oriental 
life  back  in  her  native  land,  an  orphan  with  a  small — but  it  must 
be  admitted  a  very  charming — illegitimate  family.  It  was  hard 
upon  her,  for  she  had  been  building  on  the  success  of  this 
manoeuvre,  in  which  she  had,  perhaps,  an  unreasonable  con- 
fidence. If  ,she  could  only  rely  on  Sally  not  being  inopportunely 
sick  over  mamma  just  at  the  critical  moment — that  was  the 
only  misgiving  that  crossed  her  mind.  Otherwise,  such  creases 
and  such  a  hilarious  laugh  would  be  too  much  for  starch  itself. 
Poor  lady !  she  had  thought  to  herself  more  than  once,  since 
Sally  had  begun  to  mature  and  consolidate,  that  if  Gerry  had 
only  waited  a  little — just  long  enough  to  see  what  a  little  duck 
was  going  to  come  of  it  all — and  not  lost  his  temper,  all  might 
have  been  made  comfortable,  and  Sally  might  have  had  a  little 
legitimate  half-brother  by  now.  What  had  become — what  would 
become  of  Gerry  ?  That  she  did  not  know,  might  never  know. 

One  little  pleasant  surprise  awaited  her.  It  came  to  her 
knowledge  for  the  first  time  that  she  was  sole  heir  to  the  estate 
of  her  late  stepfather,  Paul  Nightingale.  The  singular  practice 
that  we  believe  to  exist  in  many  families  of  keeping  back  all  in- 
formation about  testamentary  dispositions  as  long  as  possible 
from  the  persons  they  concern,  especially  minors,  had  been 
observed  in  her  case ;  and  her  mother,  perhaps  resenting  the  idea 
that  her  daughter — a  young  chit! — should  presume  to  outlive 
her,  had  kept  her  in  ignorance  of  the  contents  of  her  stepfather's 
will.  It  did  not  really  matter  much.  Had  the  sum  been  large, 
and  a  certainty,  it  might  have  procured  for  her  a  safer  position 
when  a  temporary  guest  at  the  Residency  at  Khopal,  or  even 
caused  her  indignant  young  bridegroom  to  think  twice  before  he 
took  steps  to  rid  himself  of  her.  But,  after  all,  it  was  only  some 
three  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  year,  and  depended  on  the  life 
of  a  lady  of  forty-odd,  who  might  live  to  be  a  hundred.  A  girl 
with  no  more  than  that  is  nearly  as  defenceless  as  she  is  with- 
out it. 


74  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

A  condition  was  attached  to  the  bequest — not  an  unwelcome 
one.  She  was  to  take  her  stepfather's  name,  Nightingale.  She 
was  really  very  glad  to  do  this.  There  was  a  faux  air  of  a  real 
married  name  about  Mrs.  Nightingale  that  was  lacking  in  Mrs. 
Graythorpe.  Besides,  all  troublesome  questions  about  who  Sally's 
father  was  would  get  lost  sight  of  in  the  fact  that  her  mother 
had  changed  her  name  in  connexion  with  that  sacred  and  glori- 
ous thing,  an  inheritance.  A  trust-fund  would  always  be  a 
splendid  red-herring  to  draw  across  the  path  of  Mrs.  Grundy's 
sleuth-hounds — a  quarry  more  savoury  to  their  nostrils  even 
than  a  reputation.  And  nothing  soothes  the  sceptical  more 
than  being  asked  now  and  again  to  witness  a  transfer  of  stock, 
especially  if  it  is  money  held  in  trust.  It  has  all  the  force  of  a 
pleasant  alterative  pill  on  the  circulation  of  Respectability — 
removes  obstructions  and  promotes  appetite — is  a  certain  remedy 
for  sleeplessness,  and  so  forth.  So  though  there  wasn't  a  par- 
ticle of  reason  why  Mrs.  Nightingale's  money  should  be  held 
by  any  one  but  herself,  as  she  had  no  intention  whatever  of 
marrying,  Colonel  Lund  consented  to  become  her  trustee;  and 
both  felt  that  something  truly  respectable  had  been  done — 
something  that  if  it  didn't  establish  a  birthright  and  a  cor- 
rect extraction  for  Miss  Sally,  at  any  rate  went  a  long  way 
towards  it. 

By  the  time  Mrs.  Nightingale  had  got  settled  in  the  little 
house  at  Shepherd's  Bush,  that  she  took  on  a  twenty-one  years' 
lease  five  or  six  years  after  her  return  to  England,  and  had 
christened  it  Saratoga,  after  her  early  recollection  of  the  place 
where  she  first  saw  her  stepfather,  whose  name  she  took  when 
she  came  into  the  money  he  left  her — by  this  time  she,  with  the 
assistance  of  Colonel  Lund,  had  quite  assumed  the  appearance  of 
a  rather  comfortably  off  young  widow-lady,  who  did  not  make 
a  great  parade  of  her  widowhood,  but  whose  circumstances 
seemed  reasonable  enough,  and  challenged  no  inquiry.  Inquisi- 
tiveness  would  have  seemed  needless  impertinence — just  as  much 
BO  as  yours  would  have  been  in  the  case  of  the  hypothetical  So- 
and-sos  at  the  beginning  of  our  last  chapter.  A  vague  impression 
got  in  the  air  that  Sally's  father  had  not  been  altogether  satisfac- 
tory— well,  wasn't  it  true?  It  may  have  leaked  out  from  some- 
thing in  "the  Major's"  manner.  But  it  never  produced  any 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  75 

effect  on  friends,  except  that  they  saw  in  it  a  reason  why  Mrs. 
Nightingale  never  mentioned  her  husband.  He  had  been  a 
black  sheep.  Silence  about  him  showed  good  feeling  on  her  part. 
De  moriuis,  etc.  .  .  . 

Of  one  thing  we  feel  quite  certain — that  if,  at  the  time  we 
made  this  lady's  acquaintance,  any  chance  friend  of  hers  or  her 
daughter's — say,  for  instance,  Laetitia  Wilson,  Sally's  old  school- 
friend  and  present  music-colleague — had  been  told  that  ^lr>. 
Nightingale,  of  Krakatoa  Villa,  No.  7,  Glenmoira  Road,  Shep- 
herd's Bush,  W.,  had  been  the  heroine  of  divorce  proceedings 
under  queer  circumstances,  that  her  husband  wasn't  dead  at  all, 
and  that  that  dear  little  puss  Sally  was  Goodness-knows-who's 
child,  we  feel  certain  that  the  information  would  have  been  cross- 
countered  with  a  blank  stare  of  incredulity.  Why,  the  mere 
fact  that  Mrs.  Nightingale  had  refused  so  many  offers  of  mar- 
riage was  surely  sufficient  to  refute  such  a  nonsensical  idea! 
Who  ever  heard  of  a  lady  with  a  soiled  record  refusing  a  good 
offer  of  marriage? 

But  while  we  are  showing  our  respect  for  what  the  man  in  the 
street  says  or  thinks,  and  the  woman  in  the  street  thinks  and 
says,  are  we  not  losing  sight  of  a  leading  phrase  of  the  symphony, 
sonata,  cantata — whatever  you  like  to  call  it — of  Mrs.  Nightin- 
gale's life?  A  phrase  that  steals  in,  just  audibly — no  more,  in 
the  most  strepitoso  passage  of  the  stormy  second  movement — a 
movement,  however,  in  which  the  proceedings  of  the  Divorce 
Court  are  scarcely  more  audible,  pianissimo  legato,  a  chorus  with 
closed  lips,  all  the  stringed  instruments  sordini.  But  it  grows 
and  grows,  and  in  allegro  con  fuoco  on  the  voyage  home,  and 
only  leaves  a  bar  or  two  blank,  when  the  thing  it  metaphorically 
represents  is  asleep  and  isn't  suffering  from  the  wind.  It  breaks 
out  again  vivacissimo  accelerando  when  Miss  Sally  (whom  we 
allude  to)  wakes  up,  and  doesn't  appreciate  Nestles  milk.  But 
it  always  grows,  and  in  due  course  may  be  said  to  become  the 
music  itself. 

More  intelligibly,  Mrs.  Nightingale  became  so  wrapped  up  in 
her  baby,  that  had  seemed  to  her  at  first  a  cruel  embarrassment 
— a  thing  to  be  concealed  and  ignored — that  very  soon  she  really 
had  no  time  to  think  about  where  she  broke  her  molasses- jug, 
as  Uncle  Remus  says.  The  new  life  that  it  had  become  hers  to 


76  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

guard  took  her  out  of  herself,  made  her  quite  another  being  from 
the  reckless  and  thoughtless  girl  of  two  years  ago. 

As  time  went  on  she  felt  more  and  more  the  value  of  the  new- 
comer's indifference  to  her  extraction  and  the  tragedy  that  had 
attended  it.  A  living  creature,  with  a  stupendous  capacity  for 
ignoring  the  past,  and,  indeed,  everything  except  a  monotonous 
diet,  naturally  gave  her  mind  a  bias  towards  the  future,  and 
hope  grew  in  her  heart  unconsciously,  without  reminding  her 
that  it  might  have  been  despair.  A  bad  alarm,  when  the  creature 
was  six  months  old,  that  an  enteric  attack  might  end  fatally, 
had  revealed  to  its  mother  how  completely  it  had  taken  posses- 
sion of  her  own  life,  and  what  a  power  for  compensation  there 
was  even  in  its  most  imperious  and  tyrannical  habits.  As  it 
gradually  became  articulate — however  unreasonable  it  continued 
— her  interest  in  its  future  extinguished  her  memories  of  her  own 
past,  and  she  found  herself  devising  games  for  baby  before  the 
little  character  was  old  enough  to  play  them,  and  costumes 
before  she  was  big  enough  to  wear  them.  By  the  time  Saratoga 
Villa  had  become  Krakatoa,  Miss  Sally  had  had  time  to  benefit 
by  a  reasonable  allowance  of  the  many  schemes  her  mother  had 
developed  for  her  during  her  infancy.  Had  all  the  projects  which 
were  mooted  for  her  further  education  at  this  date  been  success- 
fully carried  out,  she  would  have  been  an  admirable  female 
Crichton,  if  her  reason  had  survived  the  curriculum.  Luckily 
for  her,  she  had  a  happy  faculty  for  being  plucked  at  examina- 
tions, and  her  education  was  consequently  kept  within  reasonable 
bounds. 

There  was,  however,  one  department  of  culture  in  which  Sally 
outshot  all  competitors.  This  was  swimming.  She  would  give 
a  bath's  length  at  the  Paddington  Baths  to  the  next  strongest 
swimmer  in  the  Ladies'  Club,  and  come  in  triumphant  in  a  race 
of  ten  lengths.  It  was  a  grand  sight  to  see  Sally  rushing  stem 
on,  cleaving  the  water  with  her  head  almost  as  if  breath  were 
an  affectation,  and  doubling  back  at  the  end  while  the  other 
starters  were  scarcely  -half-way.  Or  shooting  through  the  air 
in  her  little  blue  costume  straight  for  the  deepest  water,  and 
then  making  believe  to  be  a  fish  on  the  shiny  tiles  at  the  bottom. 

Her  mother  always  said  she  was  certain  that  if  that  little 
monkey  had  managed  to  wriggle  through  some  hole  into  the  sea, 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  77 

on  her  voyage  home,  she  would  have  swum  after  the  ship  and 
climbed  up  the  rudder  chains.  Possibly,  but  she  was  only 
twelve  months  old!  If,  however,  she  had  met  with  an  early 
death,  her  mother's  lot  would  have  lacked  its  redemption.  The 
joint  life  of  the  two  supplies  a  possible  answer  to  the  conundrum 
that  has  puzzled  us.  For  in  a  certain  sense  the  absorption  of  her 
own  existence  in  that  of  another  than  herself  had  made  of  Rosa- 
lind the  woman,  at  the  date  of  our  introduction  to  her,  quite 
another  person  from  Eosalind  the  hot-headed  and  thoughtless 
girl  that  had  quarrelled  with  her  natural  guardian  for  doing 
what  she  had  a  perfect  right  to  do,  and  had  steered  alone  into 
unknown  seas,  a  ship  without  a  rudder  or  a  compass,  and  very 
little  knowledge  of  the  stars  of  heaven  for  her  guide.  We  can 
see  what  she  is  now  much  better  than  we  can  judge  what  she  was 
then. 

It  need  not  be  supposed  that  this  poor  lady  never  felt  any 
interest,  never  made  any  inquiry,  about  the  sequel  of  the  life 
she  had  so  completely  bouleverse;  for,  whatever  blame  we  feel 
bound  to  express,  or  whatever  exculpation  we  contrive  to  concoct 
for  her,  there  can  be  no  doubt  what  the  result  was  to  the  young 
man  who  has  come  into  the  story,  so  far,  only  under  the  name  of 
Gerry.  We  simply  record  his  designation  as  it  has  reached  us 
in  the  data  we  are  now  making  use  of.  It  is  all  hearsay  about 
a  past.  We  add  what  we  have  been  able  to  gather,  merely 
noting  that  what  it  seems  to  point  to  recommends  itself  to  us 
as  probable. 

"Nobody  knoo,  nobody  cared,"  was  our  friend  Major  Roper's 
brief  reply  to  an  inquiry  what  became  of  this  young  man.  "Why, 
good  Lard,  sir !"  he  went  on,  "if  one  was  to  begin  f ussin'  about 
all  the  Johnnies  that  shy  off  when  there's  a  row  of  that  sort, 
one  would  never  get  a  dam  night's  rest!  Not  but  what  if  I 
could  recollect  his  name.  Now,  what  was  his  confounded  name  ? 
Thought  I'd  got  it — but  no — it  wasn't  Messiter.  Fancy  his 
Christian  name  was  Jeremiah.  ...  I  recollect  Messiter  I'm 
thinkin'  of — character  that  looked  as  if  he  had  a  pain  in  his 
stomach — came  into  forty  thousand  pounds.  Stop  a  bit — was 
it  Indermaur?  No,  it  wasn't  Indermaur.  No  use  guessin' — 
give  it  up." 

Besides,  the  Major  was  getting  purple  with  suppressed  cough- 


78  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ing.  When  he  had  given  it  up,  he  surrendered  unconditionally 
to  the  cough,  but  was  presently  anxious  to  transmit,  through 
its  subsidence,  an  idea  that  he  found  it  impossible  to  shake 
across  the  table  between  us  out  of  an  inarticulate  forefinger  end. 
It  assumed  form  in  time.  Why  not  ask  the  lady  herself?  We 
demurred,  and  the  old  soldier  explained. 

"Not  rushin'  at  her,  you  know,  and  sayin',  'Who  the  dooce 
was  it  married  you,  ma'am?'  I'm  not  a  dam  fool.  Showin' 
tact,  you  know — puttin'  it  easy  and  accidental.  'Who  was  that 
young  beggar  now  ? — inspector — surveyor — something  of  the  sort 
— up  at  Umballa  in  seventy-nine?  Burrumpooter  Irrigation — 
that's  what  he  was  on.'  And,  Lard  bless  you,  my  dear  sir,  you 
don't  suppose  she'll  up  and  say,  'I  suppose  you  mean  that  dam 
husband  of  mine.'  Not  she!  Sensible  woman  that,  sir — seen 
the  world — knows  a  thing  or  two.  You'll  see  she'll  only  say, 
'That  was  Foodie  or  Parker  or  Stebbins  or  Jephson/  as  may 
be,  accordin'  to  the  name." 

We  did  not  see  our  way  to  this  enterprise,  and  said  so.  We 
drew  a  line;  said  there  were  things  you  could  do,  and  things 
you  couldn't  do.  The  Major  chuckled,  and  admitted  this  might 
be  so;  his  old  governor  used  to  say,  "Est  modus  in  rebus,  sunt 
certi  denique  fines."  The  last  two  words  remained  behind  in 
the  cough,  unless,  indeed,  they  were  shaken  out  off  the  Major's 
forefinger  into  a  squeezed  lemon  that  was  awaiting  its  Seltzer. 

"But  I  can  tell  you  thing,  Mr.,"  said  he,  forgetting  our  name, 
as  soon  as  he  felt  soothed  by  the  lemon-squash.  "He  didn't 
keep  his  name,  that  young  man  didn't.  You  may  bet  he  didn't 
safely !  Only,  it's  no  use  askin'  me  why,  nor  what  he  changed  it 
to.  If  it  was  him  that  was  lost  in  the  Bush  in  New  South  Wales, 
when  I  was  at  Sydney,  why,  of  course  that  chap's  name  was  the 
same.  I  remember  that  much.  Can't  get  hold  of  the  name, 
though."  He  appeared  to  consult  the  pattern  on  his  silk  pocket- 
handkerchief  as  an  oracle,  and  to  await  its  answer  with  a 
thoughtful  eye.  Presently  he  blew  his  nose  on  the  oracle,  and 
returned  it  to  his  pocket,  adding:  "But  it's  a  speculation — little 
speculation  of  my  own.  Don't  ask  me  I"  We  saw,  however,  that 
more  would  come,  without  asking.  And  it  came. 

"It  made  a  talk  out  there  at  the  time.  But  that  didn't  bring 
him  to  life.  You  may  talk  till  you're  hoarse,  but  you  won't 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  79 

bring  a  dead  man  to — not  when  he's  twenty  miles  off  in  a  forest 
of  gum-trees,  as  like  as  tallow-candles.  .  .  .  Oh  yes,  they  had 
the  natives  put  on  the  scent — black  trackers,  they  call  'em — 
but,  Lard !  it  was  all  no  use.  They  only  followed  the  scent  of 
his  horse,  and  the  horse  came  back  a  fortnight  after  with  them 
on  his  heels,  an  hour  or  so  behind.  .  .  .  He'd  only  just  left 
his  party  a  moment,  and  meant  to  come  back  into  the  open.  I 
suppose  he  thought  he  was  sure  to  cross  a  cutting,  and  got 
trapped  in  the  solid  woodland." 

"But  what  was  the  speculation  ?    You  said  just  now    .  .  ." 

"Not  much  to  go  by,"  said  the  Major,  shaking  a  discouraging 
head.  "Another  joker  with  another  name,  who  turned  up  a  hun- 
dred miles  off !  Harrisson,  I  fancy — yes,  Harrisson.  It  was  only 
my  idea  they  were  the  same.  I  came  away,  and  don't  know  how 
they  settled  it." 

"But  something,  Major  Roper,  must  have  made  you  think 
this  man  the  same — the  same  as  Jeremiah  Indermaur,  or  what- 
ever his  name  was — Mrs.  Nightingale's  man?" 

"Somethin'  must!  What  it  was  is  another  pair  of  shoes." 
He  cogitated  and  reflected,  but  seemed  to  get  no  nearer.  "You 
ask  Pelloo,"  he  said.  "He  might  give  you  a  tip."  Then  he 
called  for  a  small  glass  of  cognac,  because  the  Seltzer  was  such 
dam  chilly  stuff,  and  the  dry  sherry  was  no  use  at  all.  We  left 
him  arranging  the  oracle  over  his  face,  with  a  view  to  a  seri- 
ous nap. 

We  got  a  few  words  shortly  after  with  General  Pellew,  who 
seemed  a  little  surprised  at  the  Major's  having  referred  to  him 
for  information. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  he,  "why  our  friend  Roper  shouldn't 
recollect  as  much  about  it  as  I  do.  However,  I  do  certainly 
remember  that  when  this  young  gentleman,  whatever  his  name 
was.  left  the  station,  he  did  go  to  Sydney  or  Melbourne,  and 
I  have  some  hazy  recollection  of  some  one  saying  that  he  was 
lost  in  the  Bush.  But  why  old  Jack  fancies  he  was  found 
again  or  changed  his  name  to  Harrisson  I  haven't  the  slightest 
idea." 

So  that  all  we  ourselves  succeeded  in  getting  at  about  Gerry 
may  be  said  to  have  been  the  trap-door  he  vanished  through. 
Whether  Mrs.  Nightingale  got  at  other  sources  of  information  we 


80  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

cannot  say.  Whatever  she  learned  she  would  be  sure  to  keep 
her  own  counsel  about.  She  may  have  concluded  that  the  bones 
of  the  husband  who  had  in  a  fit  of  anger  deserted  her  had  been 
picked  by  white  ants,  twenty  years  ago,  in  an  Australian  forest; 
or  she  may  have  come  to  know,  by  some  means,  of  his  resuscita- 
tion from  the  Bush,  and  his  successes  or  failures  in  a  later  life 
elsewhere.  We  have  had  our  own  reasons  for  doubting  that 
she  ever  knew  that  he  took  the  name  of  Harrisson — if  he  really 
did — a  point  which  seemed  to  us  very  uncertain,  so  far  as  the 
Major's  narrative  went.  If  she  did  get  a  scrap  of  tidings,  a 
flying  word,  about  him  now  and  again,  it  was  most  likely  all  she 
got.  And  when  she  got  it  she  would  feel  the  danger  of  further 
inquiry — the  difficulty  of  laying  the  reasons  for  her  curiosity 
before  her  informant.  You  can't  easily  say  to  a  stranger:  "Oh, 
do  tell  us  about  Mrs.  Jones  or  Mr.  Smith.  She  or  he  is  our 
divorced  or  separated  wife  or  husband."  A  German  might,  but 
Mrs.  Nightingale  was  not  a  German. 

However,  she  may  have  heard  something  about  that  Gerry, 
we  grant  you,  in  all  those  twenty  long  years.  But  if  you  ask  us 
our  opinion — our  private  opinion — it  is  that  she  scarcely  heard 
of  him,  if  she  heard  at  all,  and  certainly  never  set  eyes  on  him, 
until  one  day  her  madcap  little  daughter  brought  him  home, 
half-killed  by  an  electric  shock,  in  a  cab  we  were  at  some  pains 
to  describe  accurately  a  few  pages  ago.  And  even  then,  had  it 
not  been  for  the  individualities  of  that  cab,  she  might  have 
missed  seeing  him,  and  let  him  go  away  to  the  infirmary  or  the 
police-station,  and  probably  never  been  near  him  again. 

As  it  was,  the  face  she  saw  when  a  freak  of  chance  led  to  her 
following  that  cab,  and  looking  in  out  of  mere  curiosity  at  its 
occupant,  was  the  face  of  her  old  lover — of  her  husband.  Eight- 
een— twenty — years  had  made  a  man  of  one  who  was  then  little 
more  than  a  boy.  The  mark  of  the  world  he  had  lived  in  was 
on  him;  and  it  was  the  mark  of  a  rough,  strong  world  where 
one  fights,  and,  if  one  is  a  man  of  this  sort,  maybe  wins.  But 
she  never  doubted  his  identity  for  a  moment.  And  the  way  in 
which  she  grasped  the  situation — above  all,  the  fact  that  he  had 
not  recognised  her  and  would  not  recognise  her — quite  justified, 
to  our  thinking,  Major  Eoper's  opinion  of  her  powers  of  self- 
command. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  81 

Nevertheless,  these  were  not  so  absolute  that  her  demeanour 
escaped  comment  from  the  cabby,  the  only  witness  of  her  first 
sight  of  the  "electrocuted"  man.  He  spoke  of  her  afterwards 
as  that  squealing  party  down  that  sanguinary  little  turning  off 
Shepherd's  Bush  Road  he  took  that  sanguinary  galvanic  shock  to. 


CHAPTER  IX 

HOW  THOSE  GIRLS  DO  CHATTER  OVER  THEIR  MUSIC !  MRS.  NIGHTIN- 
GALE'S RESOLUTION.  BUT,  THE  RISK!  A  HARD  PART  TO  PLAY. 
THERE  WAS  ONLY  MAMMA  FOR  THE  GIRL !  THE  GARDEN  OF  LONG  AGO 

Two  parts  in  a  sestet,  played  alone,  may  be  a  maddening 
torture  to  a  person  whose  musical  imagination  is  not  equal  to 
supplying  the  other  four.  Perhaps  you  have  heard  Haydn,  Op. 
1704,  and  rejoiced  in  the  logical  consecutiveness  of  its  fugues,  the 
indisputableness  of  its  well-classified  statements,  the  swift  perti- 
nence of  the  repartees  of  the  first  violin  to  the  second,  the  apt 
resume  and  orderly  reorganization  of  their  epigrammatic  inter- 
changes by  the  'cello  and  the  double-bass,  the  steady  typewritten 
report  and  summary  of  the  whole  by  the  pianoforte,  and  the  re- 
gretful exception  to  so  many  points  taken  by  the  clarionet.  If 
so,  you  have  no  doubt  felt,  as  we  have,  a  sense  of  perfect  satisfac- 
tion at  faultless  musical  structure,  without  having  to  surrender 
your  soul  unconditionally  to  the  passionate  appeal  of  a  Beethoven, 
or  to  split  your  musical  brains  in  conjectures  about  what  Volkani- 
koffsky  is  driving  at.  You  will  find  at  the  end  that  you  have 
passed  an  hour  or  so  of  tranquil  enjoyment,  and  are  mighty  con- 
tent with  yourself,  the  performers,  and  every  one  else. 

But  if  you  only  hear  the  two  parts,  played  alone,  and  your 
mental  image  of  all  the  other  parts  is  not  strong  enough  to  pre- 
vent your  hearing  the  two  performers  count  the  bars  while  the 
non-performers  don't  do  anything  at  all,  you  will  probably  go 
away  and  come  back  presently,  or  go  mad. 

Nobody  else  was  there  when  Sally  and  Lastitia  Wilson  were 
counting  four,  and  beginning  too  soon,  and  having  to  go  back 
and  begin  all  over  again,  and  missing  a  bar,  and  knocking  down 
their  music-stands  when  they  had  to  turn  over  quick.  So  nobody 
went  mad.  Mamma  had  gone  to  an  anti-vaccination  meeting, 
and  Athene  had  'gone  to  stay  over  Bank  Holiday  at  Leighton 
Buzzard,  and  the  boys  had  gone  to  skate,  and  papa  was  in  his 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  83 

study  and  didn't  matter,  and  they  had  the  drawing-room  to 
themselves.  Oh  dear,  how  very  often  they  did  count  four,  to 
be  sure! 

Sally  was  distraite,  and  wasn't  paying  proper  attention  to  the 
music.  Whenever  a  string  had  to  be  tightened  by  either,  Sally 
introduced  foreign  matter.  Laetitia  was  firm  and  stern  (she  was 
twenty-four,  if  you  please!),  and  wouldn't  respond.  As  thus,  in 
a  tightening-up  pause: 

"I  like  him  awfully,  you  know,  Tishy.  In  fact,  I  love  him. 
It's  a  pleasure  to  hear  him  come  into  the  house.  Only — one's 
mother,,  you  know!  It's  the  oddity  of  it!" 

"Yes,  dear.  Now,  are  you  ready?  ...  It  only  clickets  down 
because  you  will  not  screw  in;  it's  no  use  turning  and  leaving  the 
key  sloppy.  .  .  ." 

"I  know,  Tishy  dear — teach  your  granny!  There,  I  think 
that's  right  now.  But  it  is  funny  when  it's  one's  mother,  isn't 
it?" 

"One — two — three — four!  There — you  didn't  begin!  Ke- 
member,  you've  got  to  begin  on  the  demisemiquaver  at  the  end 
of  the  bar — only  not  too  staccato,  remember — and  allow  for  the 
pause.  Now — one,  two,  three,  four,  and  you  begin — in  the 
middle  of  four — not  the  end.  Oh  dear!  Now  once  more  .  .  ." 
etc. 

You  will  at  once  see  from  this  that  Sally  had  lost  no  time  in 
finding  a  confidante  for  the  fossil's  communication. 

An  hour  and  a  half  of  resolute  practising  makes  you  not  at  all 
sorry  for  an  oasis  in  the  counting,  which  you  inaugurate  (or  what- 
ever you  do  when  it's  an  oasis)  by  smashing  the  top  coal  and 
making  a  great  blaze.  And  then  vou  go  ever  so  close,  and  can 
talk. 

"Are  you  sure  it  isn't  Colonel  Lund's  mistake?  Old  gentle- 
men get  very  fanciful."  Thus  Miss  Wilson.  But  it  seems  Sally 
hasn't  much  doubt.  Rather  the  other  way  round,  if  anything! 

"I  thought  it  might  be,  all  the  way  to  Norland  Square.  Then 
I  changed  my  mind  coming  up  the  hill.  Of  course,  I  don't  know 
about  mamma  till  I  ask  her.  But  I  expect  the  Major's  right 
about  Mr.  Fenwick." 

"But  how  does  lie  know?     How  do  you  know?" 

"I  don't  know."     Sally  tastes  the  points  of  a  holly-leaf  with 


84  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

her  tongue-tip,  discreetly,  to  see  how  sharp  they  are,  and  cogi- 
tates. "At  least,"  she  continues,  "I  do  know.  He  never  takes 
his  eyes  off  mamma  from  the  minute  he  comes  into  the 
house." 

"Oh!" 

"Besides — lots  of  things!  Oh  no;  as  far  as  that  goes,  I  should 
say  he  was  spooney." 

"I  see.  You're  a  vulgar  child,  all  the  same!  But  about  your 
mother — that's  the  point." 

The  vulgar  child  cogitates  still  more  gravely. 

"I  should  say  now''  she  says,  after  thinking  it  over,  "that — 
only  I  never  noticed  it  at  the  time,  you  know " 

"That  what?" 

"That  mamma  knows  Mr.  Fenwick  is  spooney,  and  looks  up  at 
times  to  see  that  he's  going  on." 

Laetitia  seems  to  receive  this  idea  with  some  hesitation  or 
reserve.  "Looks  up  at  times  to  see  if  he's  going  on?"  she  repeats 
inquiringly. 

"Yes,  of  course — like  we  should.  Only  I  didn't  say  'see  if.'  I 
said  'see  that.'  It  makes  all  the  difference." 

Miss  Wilson  breaks  into  a  laugh.  "And  there  you  are  all  the 
time  looking  as  if  butter  wouldn't  melt  in  your  mouth,  and  as 
grave  as  a  judge." 

Sally  has  to  acquiesce  in  being  kissed  by  her  friend  at  this 
point;  but  she  curls  up  a  little  as  one  who  protests  against  being 
patronised.  "We-e-e-ell!"  she  says,  lengthening  out  the  word, 
"why  not?  I  don't  see  anything  in  that!" 

"Oh  no,  dear— that's  all  right!     Why  shouldn't  it  be?" 

But  this  isn't  candid  of  Laetitia,  whose  speech  and  kiss  had 
certainly  appeared  to  impute  suppressed  insight,  or  penetration, 
or  sly-pussness,  or  something  of  that  sort  to  her  young  friend. 
But  with  an  implied  claim  to  rights  of  insight,  on  her  own  ac- 
count, from  seniority.  Sally  is  froissee  at  this,  but  not  beyond 
jerking  the  topic  into  a  new  light. 

"Of  course,  it's  their  being  grown  up  that  makes  one  stare  so. 
If  it  wasn't  for  that  .  .  ."  But  this  gives  away  her  case,  sur- 
renders all  claim  to  her  equality  with  Laetitia's  twenty-four  years. 
The  advantage  is  caught  at  meanly. 

"That's  only  because  you're  a  baby,  dear.     Wait  till  you're 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  85 

ten  years  older,  and  thirty-eight  won't  seem  so  old.  I  suppose 
your  mother's  about  that?" 

"Mother?     Why,  she's  nearly  thirty-nine!" 

"And  Mr.  Fenwick?" 

"Oh,  he's  forty-one.  Quite!  Because  we  talked  it  all  over, 
and  made  out  they  were  over  eighty  between  them." 

"Who  talked  it  over?" 

"Why,  him  and  her  and  me,  of  course.     Last  night." 

"Who  did  you  have,  Sally  dear?" 

"Only  ourselves,  and  Dr.  Prosy  and  his  Goody  mother." 

"I  thought  Mr.  Fenwick " 

"I  counted  him  in  with  us — mother  and  me  and  the  Major." 

"Oh,  you  counted  him  in?" 

"Why  shouldn't  I  count  him  in,  if  I  like?" 

"Why  not?  And  you  do  like?"  There  is  an  appearance  of 
irritating  sagacity  about  Sally's  friend.  "What  did  Dr.  Vereker 
say,  Sally  dear?" 

"Doc-tor  Vereker!  Dr.  Prosy.  Prosy's  not  a  referee — it  was 
no  concern  of  his!  Besides — they'd  gone." 

"Who'd  gone?" 

"Dr.  Prosy  and  his  old  hen  of  a  mother.  Well,  Tish'y  dear, 
she  is  like  that.  Comes  wobbling  down  on  you  as  if  you  were 
a  chicken!  I  hope  you  don't  think  mother  and  I  and  Mr.  Fen- 
wick would  talk  about  how  old  we  were  added  together,  with  old 
Goody  Prosy  in  it!" 

"Of  course  not,  dear!" 

"Oh,  Tishy  dear,  how  aggravating  you  are!  Now  do  please 
don't  be  penetrating.  You  know  you're  trying  to  get  at  some- 
thing; and  there's  nothing  to  get  at.  It  was  perfectly  natural. 
Only,  of  course,  we  should  never  dream  of  talking  about  how  old 
before  people  and  their  gossipy  old  mothers." 

"Of  course  not,  dear!" 

"There,  now!  You're  being  imperturbable!  I  knew  you 
would.  But  you  may  say  what  you  like — there  really  was  noth- 
ing in  it.  Nothing  whatever  that  time!  However,  of  course 
mother  does  like  Mr.  Fenwick  very  much — everybody  knows 
that," 

Laetitia  says  time  will  show,  and  Sally  says,  "Show  what?" 
For  the  remark  connects  with  nothing  in  the  conversation.  Its 


86  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

maker  does  not  reply,  but  retires  into  the  fastnesses  of  a  higher 
philosophy,  unknown  to  the  teens,  but  somehow  attainable  in  the 
early  twenties.  She  comes  down,  however,  to  ask  after  Dr. 
Vereker.  Sally  has  as  good  as  held  her  tongue  about  him.  Have 
they  quarrelled? 

"My  dear  Tishy!     The  idea!     A  perfect  stranger!" 

"I  thought  you  were  such  good  friends." 

"I've  nothing  against  Dr.  Vereker.  But  fancy  quarrelling 
with  him!  Like  bosom  friends.  Kissing  and  making  it  up. 
What  next!"  Lsetitia  seems  to  have  discovered  that  Sally,  sub- 
jected to  a  fixed  amused  look,  is  sure  to  develop,  and  maintains 
one;  and  Sally  follows  on: 

"One  has  to  be  on  an  intimate  footing  to  fall  out.  Besides, 
people  shouldn't  be  hen's  sons.  Not  if  they  expect  that  sort  of 
thing!" 

"Which  sort?" 

"You  know  perfectly  well,  Tishy  dear!  And  they  shouldn't 
be  worthy,  either,  people  shouldn't.  I'm  not  at  all  sure  it  isn't 
his  worthiness,  just  as  much  as  his  mother.  I  could  swallow  his 
mother,  if  it  came  to  that!" 

Laetitia,  without  relaxing  the  magnetism  of  her  look,  is  re- 
placing a  defective  string.  But  a  stimulating  word  will  keep 
Sally  up  to  the  mark.  It  would  be  a  pity  she  should  die  down, 
having  got  so  far. 

"Not  at  all  sure  what  isn't  his  worthiness!" 

"Now,  Tishy  dear,  what  nonsense!  As  if  you  didn't  under- 
stand! You  may  just  as  well  be  penetrating  outright,  if  you're 
going  to  go  on  like  that.  All  I  know  is  that,  worthiness  or  no, 
if  Dr.  Vereker  expects  I'm  going  to  put  him  on  a  quarrelling 
footing,  he's  mistaken,  and  the  sooner  he  gives  up  the  idea  the 
better.  I  suppose  he'll  be  wanting  me  to  cherish  him  next." 

And  then  what  does  that  irritating  Lsetitia  Wilson  do  but  say 
suddenly,  "I'm  quite  ready  for  the  scherzo,  dear,  if  you  are." 
Just  as  if  Sally  had  been  talking  all  this  for  her  own  private 
satisfaction  and  amusement!  And  she  knew  perfectly  well, 
Lastitia  did,  that  she  had  been  eliciting,  and  that  she  meant  to 
wait  a  day  or  two,  and  begin  again  ever  so  far  on,  and  make 
believe  Sally  had  said  heaps  of  things,  And  Sally  had  really  said 
nothing — nothing  ! 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  87 

However,  Miss  Wilson  was  certainly  a  very  fine  violin  figure, 
and  really  striking  in  long  sostenuto  notes,  with  a  fine  throat 
and  handsome  fingers  on  her  left  hand  with  broad  bones,  and 
a  handsome  wrist  on  her  bowing-arm  where  it  was  wanted.  Only 
now,  of  course,  she  hadn't  got  her  Egyptian  bracelet  that  looked 
so  well,  and  her  hair  wasn't  done  in  a  coronet,  but  only  just 
twisted  up  anyhow.  Besides,  when  it's  a  difficult  scherzo  and 
you  take  it  quick,  your  appearance  of  having  the  concentration 
of  Bonaparte  and  Julius  Ca3sar,  and  the  alacrity  of  a  wild  cat, 
doesn't  bring  out  your  good  points.  Give  us  an  andante  maestoso 
movement,  or  a  diminuendo  rallentando  that  reaches  the  very 
climax  and  acme  of  slowness  itself  just  before  the  applause  comes! 
It  was  rather  as  a  meditation  in  contrasts,  though,  that  Sally 
thought  thus  to  herself;  for  detached  musical  jerks  of  diabolical 
rapidity,  that  have  to  be  snapped  at  with  the  punctuality  of  the 
mosquito  slayer,  don't  show  your  rounded  lines  to  advantage,  and 
make  you  clench  your  teeth  and  glare  horribly. 

Our  story  is  like  the  scherzo  in  one  respect:  it  has  to  be  given 
in  detached  jerks — literary,  not  musical — and  these  jerks  don't 
come  at  any  stated  intervals  at  all.  The  music  was  bad  enough — 
so  Sally  and  Lsetitia  thought — but  the  chronicle  is  more  spas- 
modic still.  However,  if  you  want  to  know  its  remaining  par- 
ticulars, you  will  have  to  brace  yourself  up  to  tolerating  an  inter- 
mittent style.  It  is  the  only  one  our  means  of  collecting  informa- 
tion admits  of. 

This  little  musical  interlude,  and  the  accidental  chat  of  our  two 
young  performers,  gives  us  a  kind  of  idea  of  what  was  the  posi- 
tion of  things  at  Krakatoa  Villa  six  months  after  Fenwick  made 
his  singular  reappearance  in  the  life  of  Mrs.  Nightingale.  We 
shall  rely  on  your  drawing  all  our  inferences.  There  is  only  one 
belief  of  ours  we  need  to  lay  stress  upon;  it  is  that  the  lady's 
scheme  to  do  all  she  could  to  recapture  and  hold  this  man  who 
had  been  her  husband  was  no  mere  slow  suggestion  of  the  course 
of  events  in  that  six  months,  but  a  swift  and  decisive  resolution — 
one  that,  if  not  absolutely  made  at  once,  paused  only  in  the 
making  until  she  was  quite  satisfied  that  the  disappearance  of 
Fenwick's  past  was  an  accomplished  fact.  Once  satisfied  of  that, 
he  became  to  her  simply  the  man  she  had  loved  twenty  years 


88  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ago — the  man  who  did  not,  could  not,  forgive  her  what  seemed 
so  atrocious  a  wrong,  but  whom  she  could  forgive  the  unforgive- 
ness  of;  and  this  all  the  more  if  she  had  come  to  know  of  the 
ruinous  effect  her  betrayal  of  him  had  had — must  have  had — 
upon  his  after-life.  He  was  this  man — this  very  man — to  all 
appearance  with  a  mysterious  veil  drawn,  perhaps  for  ever,  over 
the  terrible  close  of  their  brief  linked  life  and  its  hideous  cause — 
over  all  that  she  would  have  asked  and  prayed  should  be  for- 
gotten. If  only  this  oblivion  could  be  maintained! — that  was 
her  fear.  If  it  could,  what  task  could  be  sweeter  to  her  than  to 
make  him  such  amends  as  lay  in  her  power  for  the  wrong  she 
had  done  him — how  faultfully,  who  shall  say?  And  if,  in  late 
old  age,  no  dawn  of  memory  having  gleamed  in  his  ruined  mind, 
she  came  to  be  able  to  speak  to  him  and  tell  him  his  own  story — 
the  tale  of  the  wreck  of  his  early  years — would  not  that  almost, 
almost,  carry  with  it  a  kind  of  compensation  for  what  she  had 
undergone? 

But  her  terror  of  seeing  a  return  of  memory  now  was  a  haunt- 
ing nightmare  to  her.  She  could  only  soothe  and  alleviate  her 
anxiety  by  suggesting  efforts  at  recollection  to  Fenwick,  and 
observing  with  concealed  satisfaction  how  utterly  useless  they 
all  were.  She  felt  guilty  at  heart  in  being  so  happy  at  his  ill- 
success,  and  had  to  practise  an  excusable  hypocrisy,  an  affecta- 
tion of  disappointment  at  his  repeated  failures.  On  one  par- 
ticular occasion  a  shudder  of  apprehension  passed  through  her; 
she  thought  he  had  got  a  clue.  If  he  did,  what  was  to  prevent 
his  following  it  up?  She  found  it  hard  to  say  to  him  how  sorry 
she  was  this  clue  led  to  nothing,  and  to  forecast  from  it  en- 
couragement for  the  future.  But  she  said  to  herself  after  that, 
that  she  was  a  good  actress,  and  had  played  her  part  well.  The 
part  was  a  hard  one. 

For  what  came  about  was  this.  It  chanced  one  evening,  some 
three  months  after  the  railway  adventure,  when  Fenwick  had 
become  an  accepted  and  constant  visitor  at  Krakatoa  Villa,  that 
as  he  took  a  very  late  leave  of  Sally  and  her  mother,  the  latter 
came  out  with  him  into  the  always  quiet  road,  while  Sally  ran 
back  into  the  house  to  direct  a  letter  he  was  to  post,  but  which 
had  been  forgotten  for  the  moment,  just  as  he  was  departing. 

They  had  talked  a  great  deal,  and  with  a  closer  familiarity 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  89 

than  ever  before,  of  the  problem  of  Fenwick's  oblivion.  Both 
ladies  had  gone  on  the  lines  of  suggesting  clues,  trying  to  recall 
to  him  the  things  that  must  have  been  in  his  life  as  in  others. 
How  about  his  parents?  Well,  he  remembered  that,  as  a  fact, 
he  had  a  father  and  mother.  It  was  themselves  he  could  not 
recollect.  How  about  his  schooldays?  No,  that  was  a  blank. 
He  could  not  even  remember  having  been  flogged.  Yet  the 
idea  of  school  was  not  unfamiliar;  how,  otherwise,  could  he 
laugh  as  he  did  at  the  absurdity  of  forgetting  all  about  it, 
especially  being  flogged?  But  his  brothers,  his  sisters,  how 
could  he  forget  them  f  He  did,  although  in  their  case,  as  in  that 
of  his  parents,  he  somehow  knew  that  some  definite  identities 
had  existed  that  he  had  forgotten.  But  any  effort  to  recall  any 
specific  person  came  to  nothing,  or  else  he  only  succeeded  in 
reviving  images  manifestly  confused  with  characters  in  fiction 
or  history.  Then  Sally,  who  was  rather  incredulous  about  this 
complete  vacuity  of  mind,  had  said  to  him:  "But  come  now, 
Mr.  Fenwick,  you  don't  mean  to  say  you  don't  know  if  you 
ever  had  a  sweetheart?"  And  he  had  replied  with  a  laugh:  "My 
dear  Miss  Sally,  I'm  sure  I  must  have  had  plenty  of  sweethearts. 
Perhaps  it's  because  I  had  so  many  that  I  have  forgotten  them 
all — all — all!  They  are  all  gone  with  the  rest.  I  can  do  sums, 
and  can  speak  French,  but  what  school  I  learned  to  keep  accounts 
at  I  can't  tell  you;  and  as  to  where  I  lived  (as  I  must  have  done) 
among  French  people  to  speak  French,  I  can  tell  no  more  than 
Adam."  And  then  he  had  become  rather  reserved  and  silent  till 
he  got  up  to  go,  and  they  had  not  liked  to  press  him  for  more. 
The  pained  look  they  had  often  been  distressed  to  see  came  on 
his  face,  and  he  pressed  his  fingers  on  his  eyelids  as  though  shut- 
ting out  the  present  world  might  help  him  to  recall  the  past;  then 
with  a  rough  head-shake  of  his  thick  hair,  like  a  big  dog,  and  a 
brushing  of  it  about  with  both  hands,  as  though  he  would  rouse 
this  useless  head  of  his  to  some  sort  of  action,  he  put  the  whole 
thing  aside,  and  talked  of  other  matters  till  he  left  the  house. 

But  when  he  and  Mrs.  Nightingale  found  themselves  alone  in 
the  road,  enjoying  the  delicious  west  wind  that  meant  before  the 
morning  to  become  an  equinoctial  gale,  and  blow  down  chimney- 
pots and  sink  ships,  he  turned  to  her  and  went  back  to  what  they 
had  been  talking  of.  She  could  see  the  fine  strong  markings  of  his 


90  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

face  in  the  moonlight,  the  great  jaw  and  firm  lips,  the  handsome 
nose  damaged  by  a  scar  that  lay  true  across  the  bridge  of  it,  and 
looked  white  in  the  gleam  of  the  moon,  the  sad  large  eyelids  and 
the  grave  eyes  that  had  retaken  the  look  he  had  shaken  off.  She 
could  note  and  measure  every  change  maturity  had  stamped  upon 
him,  and  could  see  behind  it  the  boy  that  had  come  to  meet  her 
at  the  station  at  Umballa  twenty  years  before — had  met  her  full 
of  hope,  met  her  to  claim  his  reward  after  the  long  delay  through 
the  hideous  days  of  the  pestilence,  to  inaugurate  the  anticipated 
hours  of  happiness  he  had  trembled  to  dream  of.  And  the  worst 
of  the  cholera  wards  that  had  filled  the  last  months  of  his  life 
with  horror  had  held  nothing  for  him  so  bad  as  the  tale  she  had 
to  tell  or  conceal.  She  could  see  back  upon  it  as  they  stood  there 
in  the  moonlight.  Do  not  say  she  was  not  a  strong  woman. 

"Do  you  know,  Mrs.  Nightingale,"  Fenwick  said,  "it's  always 
a  night  of  this  sort  that  brings  back  one's  youth?  You  know 
what  I  mean?" 

"I  think  I  understand  what  you  mean,  Mr.  Fenwick.  You 
mean  if" — she  hesitated  a  moment — "if  you  could  recollect." 

He  nodded  a  complete  yes. 

"Just  that,"  said  he.  "I  don't  know  if  it's  the  millions  of 
dry  leaves  sweeping  about,  or  the  moon  scudding  so  quick  through 
the  clouds,  or  the  smell  of  the  Atlantic,  or  the  bark  coming  off 
the  plane-trees,  or  the  wind  blowing  the  roads  into  smooth  dust- 
drifts  and  hard  clear-ups  you  could  eat  your  dinner  off — I  don't 
know  what  it  is,  but  something  or  another  on  a  night  of  this  sort 
does  always  seem  to  bring  old  times  back,  when,  as  you  say, 
they  can  be  got  back  on  any  terms."  He  half-laughed,  not  in 
earnest.  She  found  something  to  say,  also  not  very  much  in 
earnest. 

"Because  we  remember  nights  of  the  sort  when  we  were  small, 
and  that  brings  them  back." 

"Come,  I  say  now,  Mrs.  Nightingale!  As  if  we  couldn't  re- 
member all  sorts  of  nights,  and  nothing  comes  back  about  them. 
It's  this  particular  sort  of  night  does  the  job." 

"Did  you  think  you  remembered  something,  Mr.  Fenwick?" 
There  was  anxiety  in  her  voice,  but  no  need  to  conceal  it.  It 
would  as  readily  pass  muster  for  anxiety  that  he  should  have 
remembered  something  as  that  he  shouldn't. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  91 

"I  can  hardly  go  so  far  as  that.  But  that  joke  of  your  little 
pussycat  about  the  sweethearts  got  mixed  with  the  smell  of  the 
wind  and  the  chrysanthemums  and  dahlias  and  sunflowers." 
He  pressed  his  fingers  hard  on  his  eyes  again.  "Do  you  know, 
there's  pain  in  it — worse  than  you'd  think!  The  half -idea  that 
comes  is  not  painful  in  itself — rather  the  contrary — but  it  gives 
my  brain  a  twist  at  the  point  at  which  I  can  recall  no  more.  Yes, 
it's  painful!" 

"But  there  was  a  half-idea?  Forgive  me  if  it  gives  you  pain, 
and  don't  try.  Only  I'm  not  sure  you  ought  not  to  try  when  the 
chance  comes,  for  your  own  sake." 

"Oh,  I  don't  mind  trying.  This  time  it  was  something  about 
a  front  garden  and  a  girl  and  a  dog-cart."  He  had  not  taken 
his  hands  from  his  eyes.  Now  he  did  so,  brushing  them  on  his 
hair  and  forehead  as  before.  "I  get  no  nearer,"  said  he. 

"A  front  garden  and  a  girl  and  a  dog-cart,"  thus  Miss  Sally 
saucily,  coming  out  with  the  letter.  "Did  you  have  a  very  touch- 
ing parting,  Mr.  Fenwick?  Now,  mind  you  don't  forget  to  post 
it.  I  wouldn't  trust  you!"  He  took  the  letter  from  her,  but 
seemed  too  distrait  to  notice  her  little  piece  of  levity;  then,  still 
speaking  as  if  in  distress  or  pain,  he  said: 

"It  must  have  been  some  front  garden,  long  ago.  This  one 
brought  it  back — this  and  the  leaves.  Only  there  was  nothing 
for  the  dog-cart." 

"And  only  mamma  for  the  girl" — thus  Sally  the  irrepressible. 
And  then  mamma  laughed,  but  not  Mr.  Fenwick  at  all.  Only 
Sally  thought  her  mother's  laugh  came  hard,  and  said  to  herself, 
now  she  should  catch  it  for  chaffing!  However,  she  didn't  catch 
it,  although  the  abruptness  with  which  her  mother  said  good-night 
and  went  back  into  the  house  half  confirmed  her  impression  that 
she  should. 

On  the  contrary,  when  she  followed  her  a  few  minutes  later, 
having  accompanied  Fenwick  to  near  the  road  end,  and  scam- 
pered back  to  the  house,  turning  to  throw  Parthian  good-nights 
after  him,  she  found  her  mother  pale  and  thoughtful,  and  surely 
the  lips  and  hands  she  used  to  kiss  her  with  were  cold.  She 
wasn't  even  sure  that  wasn't  a  tear.  Perhaps  it  was. 

For  mamma  had  had  a  bad  ten  minutes — scarcely  a  mauvais 
quart  d'heure — and  even  that  short  interim  had  given  her  time 


92  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

to  see  that  this  kind  of  thing  would  be  incessant  with  her  re- 
covered husband,  granting  that  she  could  recover  him.  Only  of 
that  she  felt  nearly  secure — unaccountably,  perhaps;  certainly 
not  warrantably.  But  how  to  bear  this  kind  of  thing  through  a 
life? — that  was  the  question. 

What  was  this  kind  of  thing,  this  bad  ten  minutes,  that  had 
made  her  tremble,  and  turn  white,  and  glad  to  get  away,  and  be 
alone  a  minute  before  Sally  came  up  jubilant?  But  oh,  how 
glad,  for  all  that,  to  get  at  her  daughter's  lips  to  kiss! — only  not 
too  hard,  so  as  to  suggest  reflection  and  analysis. 

What  had  upset  Mrs.  Nightingale  was  a  counter-memory  of 
twenty  years  ago,  a  clear  and  full  and  vivid  recollection  of  the 
garden  and  the  girl  and  the  dog-cart.  And  then  also  there  "had 
only  been  mamma  for  the  girl."  But  oh,  the  relation  the  lassie 
who  said  those  words  bore  to  those  past  days,  her  place  in  the 
drama  that  filled  them  out!  Little  wonder  her  mother's  brain 
reeled. 

She  could  see  it  all  vividly  now,  all  over  again.  A  glorious 
night  like  this;  a  dazzling  full  moon  sailing  in  the  blue  beyond 
the  tumbled  chaos  of  loose  cloud  so  near  the  earth;  the  riot  of 
the  wind-swept  trees  fighting  to  keep  a  shred  of  their  old  green 
on  their  bareness,  making  new  concessions  to  the  blast,  and  beat- 
ing their  stripped  limbs  together  in  their  despair;  the  endless 
swirl  of  leaves  at  liberty,  free  now  at  last  to  enjoy  a  short  and 
merry  life  before  becoming  food  for  worms.  She  could  see  the 
face  she  had  just  parted  from,  but  twenty  years  younger — the 
same  bone-structure  with  its  unscarred  youth  upon  it,  only  a 
lesser  beard  with  a  sunnier  tinge,  but  all  the  thickness  of  the  hair. 
She  could  remember  the  voices  in  the  house,  the  farewells  to  the 
young  man  who  was  just  starting  for  India,  and  how  she  slipped 
down  to  say  a  last  good-bye  on  her  own  account,  and  felt  grate- 
ful to  that  old  Dean  Ireson  (the  only  time  in  her  life)  for  beg- 
ging her  mother  (who,  of  course,  was  the  Rosalind  Nightingale 
Fenwick  spoke  of  in  the  train)  on  no  account  to  expose  herself 
to  the  night-air.  Why,  she  might  have  come  down,  too,  into 
the  garden,  and  spoiled  it  all!  And  then  she  could  remember — 
oh,  how  well! — their  last  words  in  the  windy  garden,  and  the 
horse  in  the  dog-cart,  fresh  from  his  stall,  and  officiously  anxious 
to  catch  the  train — as  good  as  saying  so,  with  flings  and  stamps. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  93 

And  how  little  she  cared  if  the  groom  did  hear  him  call  her 
Rosey,  for  that  was  his  name  for  her. 

"Now,  Gerry,  remember,  I've  made  you  no  promises;  but  I'll 
play  fair.  If  I  change  my  mind,  I'll  write  and  tell  you.  And 
you  may  write  to  me." 

"Every  day?" 

"Silly  boy,  be  reasonable!  Once  a  month!  You'll  see,  you'll 
get  tired  of  it." 

"Come,  Rosey,  I  say!     The  idea!" 

"Yes,  you  will!     Now  go!     You'll  lose  the  train." 

"Oh,  Rosey  dearest!" 

"Yes,  what? — you'll  lose  the  train." 

"Oh,  my  dearest,  I  can't!  Just  think — I  may  never  see  you 
again!" 

"You  must  go,  Gerry  dear!  And  there's  that  blockhead  of 
a  boy  outside  there." 

"Never  mind  him;  he's  nobody!  Only  one  more.  .  .  .  Yes, 
dearest  love,  I'm  really  going.  .  .  .  Good-bye!  good-bye!  God 
bless  you!" 

And  then  how  she  stood  there  with  the  memory  of  his  lips 
dying  on  hers,  alone  by  the  gate,  in  the  wild  wind,  and  heard 
the  sharp  regular  trot  of  the  horse  lessen  on  the  hard  road  and 
die  away,  and  then  the  running  of  a  train  she  thought  was  his, 
and  how  he  would  surely  miss  it,  and  have  to  come  back.  And 
it  would  be  nice  just  to  see  him  again!  But  he  was  gone,  for 
all  that,  and  he  was  a  dear  good  boy.  And  she  recollected  going 
to  her  bedroom  to  do  up  her  hair,  which  had  all  come  down,  and 
hiding  her  face  on  her  pillow  in  a  big  burst  of  tears. 

Her  mind  harked  back  on  all  this  as  he  himself,  the  same  but 
changed,  stood  there  in  the  moonlight  striving  to  recollect  it  all, 
and  mysteriously  failing.  But  at  least,  he  did  fail,  and  that 
was  something.  But  oh,  what  a  wrench  it  gave  to  life,  thought, 
reason,  to  all  her  heart  and  being,  to  have  that  unconscious  chit 
cut  in  with  "only  mamma  for  the  girl!"  What  and  whence  was 
this  little  malaprop?  Her  overwrought  mind  shut  away  this 
question — almost  in  the  asking  it — with  "Dearer  to  me,  at  least, 

than  anything  else  in  this  world,  unless "  and  then  shut  away 

the  rest  of  the  answer. 

But  she  was  glad  to  get  at  Sally,  and  feel  her  there,  though 


94  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

she  could  not  speak  freely  to  her — nor,  indeed,  speak  at  all. 
And  as  soon  as  the  tension  died  down,  she  went  back  as  to  a 
source  of  peace  to  the  failure  of  his  powers  of  memory,  obvious, 
complete.  All  her  hopes  lay  in  that.  Where  would  they  be  if 
the  whole  past  were  suddenly  sprung  on  him?  He  might  be 

ready  to  bury  bygones,  but 

She  woke  next  day  fairly  at  ease  in  her  mind,  but  feeling  as 
one  does  after  any  near-run  escape.  And  then  it  was  she  said 
to  herself  that  she  was  a  good  actress.  But  the  part  was  hard 
to  act. 

The  relations  between  Fenwick  and  the  Nightingales,  mother 
and  daughter,  seem  to  us  to  have  been  acquiring  cohesion  at  the 
time  of  the  foregoing  interview.  It  is  rather  difficult  to  say 
why.  But  it  serves  to  pave  the  way  to  the  state  of  things  that 
Sally  accepted  as  the  "spooneyness"  of  Fenwick,  and  her  mother's 
observation  of  his  "going  on,"  without  the  dimmest  idea  of  the 
underlying  motives  of  the  drama.  Another  three  months,  bring- 
ing us  on  to  these  discriminations  of  Sally's,  may  also  have 
brought  about  appearances  that  justified  them. 


CHAPTEE  X 

THE  DANGERS  OF  AN  UNKNOWN  PAST.  NETTLE-GRASPING,  AND  A  RECUR- 
RENCE. WHO  AMONG  US  COURTS  CATECHISM  ABOUT  HIMSELF?  A 
UNIVERSALLY  PROVIDED  YOUNG  MAN.  HOW  ABOUT  THE  POOR  OLD 
FURNITURE  ? 

WE  defy  the  acutest  of  psychologists  to  estimate  precisely  the 
hold  love  has  on  a  man  who  is  diagnosed,  in  the  language  of  the 
vulgar  child  Sally,  as  "spooney."  Probably  no  patient  has  ever 
succeeded  in  doing  this  himself.  It  is  quite  another  matter 
when  the  eruption  has  broken  out,  when  the  crater  is  vomiting 
flames  and  the  lava  is  pouring  down  on  the  little  homesteads  at 
the  mountain's  base,  that  may  stand  in  the  metaphor  for  all  that 
man's  duties  and  obligations.  By  that  time  he  knows.  But, 
while  still  within  the  "spooney"  zone  he  knows  no  more  than  you 
or  I  (or  that  most  important  she)  what  the  morrow  means  to 
bring.  Will  it  be  a  step  on  or  a  step  back?  An  altogether  new 
she,  or  the  fires  of  the  volcano,  let  loose  beyond  recall? 

Fenwick  was  certainly  not  in  a  position  to  gauge  his  own  feel- 
ings towards  Mrs.  Nightingale.  All  previous  experience  was 
cut  away  from  him,  or  seemed  so.  He  might  have  been,  for 
anything  he  knew,  a  married  man  with  a  family,  a  devoted 
husband.  He  might  have  been  recently  wedded  to  an  adoring 
bride,  and  she  might  now  be  heart-broken  in  her  loneliness. 
How  could  he  tell?  The  only  thing  that  gave  him  courage 
about  this  was  that  he  could  remember  the  fact  that  he  had  had 
parents,  brothers,  sisters.  He  could  not  recollect  anything 
whatever  about  sweetheart,  wife,  or  child.  Unearthly  gusts  of 
half-ideas  came  to  him  at  times,  like  that  of  the  girl  and  the 
dog-cart.  But  they  only  gave  him  pain,  and  went  away  unsolved, 
leaving  him  sick  and  dizzy. 

His  situation  was  an  acutely  distressing  one.  He  was  shackled 
and  embarrassed,  so  to  speak,  by  what  he  knew  of  his  relations 
to  existence.  At  any  moment  a  past  might  be  sprung  on  him, 

95 


96  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

\       ' 

bringing  him  suddenly  face  to  face  with  God  knows  what.  So 
strongly  did  he  feel  this  that  he  often  said  to  himself  that  the 
greatest  boon  that  could  be  granted  to  him  would  be  an  assurance 
of  continued  oblivion.  He  was  especially  afflicted  by  memories 
of  an  atrocious  clearness  that  would  come  to  him  in  dreams,  the 
horror  of  which  would  remain  on  into  his  waking  time.  They 
were  not  necessarily  horrible  things  at  all,  but  their  clearness  in 
the  dream,  and  their  total,  if  slow,  disappearance  as  the  actual 
world  came  back,  became  sometimes  an  excruciating  torment. 
Who  could  say  that  they,  or  some  equivalents,  might  not  reach 
him  out  of  the  past  to-day  or  to-morrow — any  time? 

For  instance,  he  had  one  morning  waked  up  in  a  perfect 
agony — a  cold  perspiration  as  of  the  worst  nightmares — because 
of  a  dream  harmless  enough  in  itself.  He  had  suddenly  remem- 
bered, in  the  dream-street  he  could  identify  the  houses  of  so 
plainly,  a  first-floor  he  had  occupied  where  he  had  left  all  his 
furniture  locked  up  years  ago.  And  he  had  found  the  house  and 
the  first-floor  quite  easily,  and  had  not  seen  anything  strange 
in  the  landlord  saying  that  he  and  his  old  woman  often  won- 
dered when  Mr.  Fenwick  would  come  for  his  things.  It  was  not 
the  accumulation  of  rent  unpaid,  nor  that  of  the  dirt  he  knew  he 
should  find  on  the  furniture  (all  of  which  he  could  recollect  in 
the  dream  perfectly  well),  but  the  fact  that  he  had  forgotten 
it  all,  and  left  it  unclaimed  all  those  years,  that  excruciated  him. 
Even  his  having  to  negotiate  for  its  removal  in  his  shirt  did  not 
afflict  him  so  much  as  his  forgetfulness  for  so  long  of  the  actual 
furniture;  his  conviction  of  the  reality  of  which  lasted  on  after 
his  discovery  about  his  costume  had  made  him  suspect,  in  his 
dream,  that  he  was  dreaming. 

To  a  man  whose  memory  is  sound,  who  feels  sure  he  looks 
back  on  an  actual  past  in  security,  such  a  dream  is  only  a  curiosity 
of  sleep.  To  Fenwick  it  was,  like  many  others  of  the  same  sort, 
a  possible  herald  of  an  analogous  revelation  in  waking  hours,  with 
a  sequel  of  dreadful  verification  from  some  abysm  of  an  utterly 
forgotten  past. 

His  worst  terror,  far  and  away,  was  the  fear  that  he  was 
married  and  a  father.  It  might  have  been  supposed  that  this 
arose  from  a  provisional  sense  of  pity  for  the  wife  and  children  he 
must  have  left;  that  his  mind  would  conceive  hypothetical  poverty 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  97 

for  them,  or  sorrow,  disease,  or  death,  the  result  direct  or  in- 
direct of  his  disappearance.  But  this  was  scarcely  the  case. 
They  themselves  were  too  intensely  hypothetical.  In  this  respect 
the  blank  in  his  intellect  was  so  unqualified  that  it  might  never 
have  occurred  to  him  to  ask  himself  the  question  if  they  existed 
had  it  not  been  suggested  to  him  by  Mrs.  Nightingale  herself. 
It  was,  in  fact,  a  question  she  almost  always  recurred  to  when 
Miss  Sally  was  out  of  the  way.  It  was  no  use  trying  to  talk 
seriously  when  that  little  monkey  was  there.  She  turned  every- 
thing to  a  joke.  But  the  Major  was  quite  another  thing.  He 
would  back  her  up  in  anything  reasonable. 

"I  wish  more  could  be  done  to  find  out,"  said  she  for  the 
twentieth  time  to  Fenwick  one  evening,  shortly  after  the  musical 
recital  of  last  chapter.  "I  don't  feel  as  if  it  was  right  to  give  up 
advertising.  Suppose  the  poor  thing  is  in  Australia  or  America." 

"The  poor  thing  is  my  hypothetical  wife?" 

"Exactly  so.  Well,  suppose  she  is.  Some  people  never  see 
any  newspapers  at  all.  And  all  the  while  she  may  have  been 
advertising  for  you," 

"Oh  no;  we  should  have  been  sure  to  see  or  hear." 

"But  why?  Now  I  ask  you,  Mr.  Fenwick,  suppose  she  adver- 
tised half  a  dozen  times  in  the  'Melbourne  Argus'  or  the  'New 
York  Sun,'  would  you  have  seen  it,  necessarily?" 

"/  should  not,  because  I  never  see  the  'Melbourne  Argus'  or 
the  'New  York  Sun.'  But  those  agents  we  paid  to  look  out  go 
steadily  through  the  agony  columns — the  personal  advertise- 
ments— of  the  whole  world's  press;  they  would  have  found  it  if 
it  had  ever  been  published." 

"I  dare  say  they  only  pocketed  the  money." 

"That  they  did,  no  doubt.  But  they  gave  me  something  for 
it.  A  hundred  and  twenty-three  advertisements  addressed  to 
Fenwicks — none  of  them  to  me!" 

"But  have  we  advertised  enough?" 

"Oh,  heavens,  yes.  Think  of  the  answers  we've  had!  I've 
just  received  the  hundred  and  forty-second.  From  a  lady  in 
distressed  circumstances  who  bought  a  piano  ten  years  ago  from 
a  party  of  my  name  and  initials — thought  I  might  be  inclined 
to  buy  it  back  at  half-price.  She  proposes  to  call  on  me  early 
next  week." 


98  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Poor  Mr.  Fenwick!  It  is  discouraging,  I  admit.  But,  oh 
dear!  fancy  if  there's  some  poor  thing  breaking  her  heart  some- 
where! It's  easy  enough  for  you — you  don't  believe  in  her." 

"That's  it;  I  don't!"  He  dropped  a  tone  of  pleasantry,  and 
spoke  more  seriously.  "Dear  Mrs.  Nightingale,  if  my  absence 
of  conviction  of  the  existence  of  this  lad}^  did  not  rise  to  the 
height  of  a  definite  disbelief  in  her  altogether — well,  I  should 
be  wretched.  But  I  feel  very  strongly  that  I  need  not  make  my- 
self a  poor  miserable  about  her.  I  don't  believe  in  her,  that's 
the  truth!" 

"You  don't  believe  a  man  could  forget  his  wife?" 

"I  can't  believe  it,  try  how  I  may!  Anything — anybody  else — 
but  his  wife,  no!" 

Fenwick  had  come  in  late  in  the  evening,  as  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  doing,  often  three  or  four  times  in  the  week.  He  looked 
across  from  his  side  of  the  heathrug,  where  he  had  been  standing 
watching  the  fire,  but  could  not  see  the  face  opposite  to  him. 
Mrs.  Nightingale  was  sitting  with  her  back  to  the  light  sheltering 
her  eyes  from  the  blaze  with  a  fire-screen.  So  Fenwick  saw  only 
the  aureole  the  lamp  made  in  her  hair — it  was  a  fine  halo  with  a 
golden  tinge.  Sally  was  very  proud  of  mamma's  hair;  it  was 
much  better  fun  to  do  than  her  own,  said  the  vulgar  child.  But 
even  had  she  not  been  hidden  by  the  screen,  the  expression  on 
her  face  might  have  meant  nothing  to  him — that  is,  nothing 
more  than  the  ready  sympathy  he  was  so  well  accustomed  to. 
A  little  anxiety  of  eye,  a  tremor  in  the  lip,  the  birth  of  a  frown 
without  a  sequel — these  might  have  meant  anything  or  nothing. 
She  might  even  have  turned  whiter  than  she  did,  and  yet  not  be 
said  to  show  the  cross-fire  of  torments  in  her  heart.  She  was, 
as  we  told  you,  a  strong  woman,  either  by  nature,  or  else  her  life 
had  made  her  one. 

For,  think  of  what  the  recesses  of  her  memory  held;  think  of 
the  past  she  looked  back  on,  and  knew  to  be  nothing  but  a  blank 
to  him.  Think  of  what  she  was,  and  he  was,  as  he  stood  there 
and  said,  "Anybody  else,  but  his  wife;"  and  then  rather  shaped 
the  "No"  that  followed  with  his  lips  than  said  it;  but  shook  an 
emphasis  into  the  word  with  his  head. 

"When  are  you  going  to  get  your  hair  cut,  Mr.  Fenwick?" 
said  she;  and  he  did  think  she  changed  the  subject  abruptly,  with- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  99 

out  apparent  cause.  "It's  just  like  a  lion's  mane  when  you  shake 
it  like  that." 

"To-morrow,  if  you  think  it  too  disreputable." 

"I  like  it.     Sally  wants  to  cut  it.  .  .  ." 

The  last  few  words  showed  the  completeness  of  Fenwick's  tame 
cattitude  in  the  family.  It  had  developed  in  an  amazingly 
short  time.  Was  it  due  to  the  old  attachment  of  this  man  and 
woman — an  attachment,  mind  you,  that  was  sound  and  strong 
till  it  died  a  violent  death?  We  do  not  find  this  so  very  in- 
credible; perhaps,  because  that  memory  of  their  old  parting  in 
the  garden  went  nearer  to  an  actual  revival  than  any  other  stir- 
ring in  his  mind.  But,  of  course,  there  may  have  been  others 
equally  strong,  only  we  chance  to  hear  of  this  one. 

That  was  not  our  purpose,  however,  in  recording  such  seeming 
trivial  chat.  It  was  not  trivial  on  Mrs.  Nightingale's  part.  She 
had  made  up  her  mind  to  flinch  from  nothing,  always  to  grasp 
her  nettle.  Here  was  a  nettle,  and  she  seized  it  firmly.  If  she 
identified  as  clearly  as  she  did  that  shaken  lion-mane  of  Fen- 
wick's  with  that  of  Gerry,  the  young  man  of  twenty  years  ago, 
and  seeing  its  identity  was  silent,  that  would  be  flinching.  She 
would  and  did  say  the  self-same  thing  she  could  recall  saying  to 
Gerry.  And  she  asked  Fenwick  when  he  was  going  to  get  his 
hair  cut  with  a  smile,  that  was  like  that  of  the  Indian  brave 
under  torture.  A  knife  was  through  her  heart.  But  it  was  well 
done,  so  she  thought  to  herself.  If  she  could  be  as  intrepid  as 
that,  she  could  go  on  and  live.  She  tried  experiments  of  this 
sort  when  the  watchful  merry  eyes  of  her  daughter  were  not 
upon  her,  and  even  felt  glad,  this  time,  that  the  Major  was  hav- 
ing a  doze  underneath  a  "Daily  Telegraph."  Fenwick  took  it  all 
as  a  matter  of  course,  mere  chaff.  .  .  . 

Did  he?  If  so,  why,  after  a  few  words  more  of  chat,  did  he 
press  his  hands  on  his  eyes  and  shake  a  puzzled  head;  then,  after 
an  abrupt  turn  up  and  down  the  room,  come  back  to  where  he 
stood  at  first  and  draw  a  long  breath? 

"Was  that  a  recurrence,  Mr.  Fenwick?"  she  asked.  They  had 
come  to  speak  of  these  mental  discomforts  as  recurrences.  They 
would  afflict  him,  not  seldom,  without  bringing  to  his  mind  any 
definite  image.  And  this  was  the  worst  sort.  When  an  image 
came,  his  mind  felt  eased. 


100  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"A  sort  of  one." 

"Can  you  tell  when  it  came  on?"  All  this  was  nettle-grasp- 
ing. She  was  getting  used  to  it.  "Was  it  before  or  after  I  said 
that  about  your  hair?" 

"After.  No,  before.  Perhaps  just  about  then."  Mrs. 
Nightingale  decided  that  she  would  not  tempt  Providence  any 
further.  Self-discipline  was  good,  but  not  carried  to  danger- 
point. 

"Now  sit  down  and  be  quiet,"  she  said.  "We  won't  talk  any 
more  about  unpleasant  things.  Only  the  worst  of  it  is,"  she 
added,  smiling,  "that  one's  topics — yours  and  mine,  I  mean — 
are  so  limited  by  the  conditions.  I  should  ask  any  other  man 
who  had  been  about  the  world,  as  you  must  have  done,  all  sorts 
of  questions  about  all  sorts  of  places — where  he  had  been,  whom 
he  had  seen.  You  can't  answer  questions,  though  I  hope  you 
will  some  day.  .  .  ." 

She  paused,  and  he  saw  the  reason.  "You  see,"  said  he,  with 
a  good-humoured  laugh,  "one  gets  back  directly  to  the  unpleasant 
subject,  whether  one  will  or  no.  But  if  I  could  remember  all 
about  my  precious  self,  I  might  not  court  catechism  about 
it.  .  .  ." 

"/  should  not  about  mine."  This  was  said  in  a  low  tone,  with 
a  silent  look  on  the  unraised  eyes  that  was  almost  an  invitation 
not  to  hear,  and  her  lips  hardly  moved  to  say  it,  either.  He 
missed  it  for  the  moment,  but  finished  his  speech  with  the 
thought  in  his  mind. 

"Still,  it's  an  ill- wind  that  blows  nobody  good.  See  what  a 
clear  conscience  I  have!  But  what  was  that  you  said?" 

She  dropped  the  fire-screen  *and  raised  her  eyes — fine  eyes 
they  were,  which  we  might  have  likened  to  those  of  Juno  had  the 
eyes  of  oxen  been  blue — turning  them  full  on  him.  "When?" 
said  she. 

"Just  this  minute.  I  ought  to  have  apologized  for  interrupt- 
ing you." 

"I  said  I  should  not  court  catechism  about  myself.  I  should 
not."  Fenwick  felt  he  could  not  assign  this  speech  its  proper 
place  in  the  dialogue  without  thinking.  He  thought  gravely, 
looking  to  all  seeming  into  the  fire  for  enlightenment;  then 
turned  round  and  spoke. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  101 

"Surely  that  is  true,  in  a  sense,  of  all  mankind — mankind  and 
womankind.  Nobody  wants  to  be  seen  through.  But  one's  past 
would  need  to  be  a  very  shaky  one  to  make  one  wish  for  an 
oblivion  like  mine  to  extinguish  it." 

"I  should  not  dislike  it.  I  have  Tttow  all  that  I  wish  to  keep 
out  of  the  past.  I  have  Sally.  There  is  nothing  I  could  not 
afford  to  forget  in  the  past,  no  one  thing  the  loss  of  which  could 
alter  her  in  the  least,  that  little  monkey  of  a  daughter  of  mine! 
And  there  are  many,  many  things  I  should  like  to  see  the  last 
of."  From  which  speech  Fenwick  derived  an  impression  that 
the  little  monkey,  the  vulgar  child,  had  come  back  warm  and 
living  and  welcome  to  the  speaker's  mind,  and  had  driven  away 
some  mists  of  night,  some  uglinesses  that  hung  about  it.  How  he 
wished  he  could  ask:  "Was  one  of  them  her  father?"  That  was 
not  practicable.  But  it  was  something  of  that  sort,  clearly. 
His  mind  could  not  admit  the  idea  of  a  haunting  remorse,  a 
guilty  conscience  of  an  action  of  her  own,  in  the  memory  of  the 
woman  who  spoke  to  him.  He  was  too  loyal  to  her  for  that. 
Besides,  the  wording  of  her  speech  made  no  such  supposition 
necessary.  Fenwick's  answer  to  it  fell  back  on  abstractions — the 
consolation  a  daughter  must  be,  and  so  forth. 

"There  she  is!"  said  her  mother;  and  then  added,  as  pertur- 
bation without  heralded  Miss  Sally's  approach:  "I  will  tell  you 
what  I  meant  some  other  time."  For  there  she  was,  no  doubt 
of  it,  wild  with  excitement  to  report  the  splendid  success  of  the 
great  sestet,  the  production  of  which  had  been  the  event  of  the 
musical  gathering  she  had  come  from.  And  you  know  as  well 
as  we  do  how  it  is  when  youth  and  high  spirits  burst  in  upon 
the  sober  stay-at-homes,  intoxicated  with  music  and  lights  and 
supper  and  too  many  people  talking  at  once.  Sally's  eyebrows 
and  teeth  alone  would  have  been  enough  to  set  all  the  birds 
singing  in  the  dullest  coppices  decorum  ever  planted,  let  alone 
the  tales  she  had  to  tell  of  all  the  strange  and  wonderful  things 
that  had  come  to  pass  at  the  Erskine  Peels',  who  were  the  givers 
of  the  party,  and  always  did  things  on  such  a  scale. 

"And  where  do  you  think,  mother,  Mrs.  Erskine  Peel  gets  all 
those  good-looking  young  men  from  that  come  to  her  parties? 
Why,  from  the  Stores,  of  course.  Just  fancy!  .  .  .  How  do  I 
know?  Why,  because  I  talked  to  one  of  them  for  ever  so  long, 


102  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

and  made  him  tell  me  all  about  it.  I  detected  him,  and  told 
him  so  straight  off.  How  did  I  recognise  him?  Why,  of  course, 
because  he's  that  young  man  that  came  here  about  the  letter. 
Oh,  you  know,  Mr.  Fenwick!  Gracious  me,  how  slow  you  are! 
The  young  man  that  brought  you  the  letter  to  translate.  Bather 
tall,  dark  eyes." 

"Oh  yes,  certainly.  I  remember  him  quite  well.  Well,  I 
expect  he  made  a  very  good  young  man  for  a  small  tea-party." 

"Of  course  he  did,  and  it's  quite  ridiculous."  By  which  the 
vulgar  child  meant  that  class  distinctions  were  ridiculous.  She 
had  this  way  of  rushing  subjects,  eliding  the  obvious,  and  rely- 
ing on  her  hearers.  "He  told  me  all  about  it.  He'd  been 
universally  provided,  he  said;  and  I  promised  not  to  tell.  Miss 
Erskine  Peel — that's  Orange,  you  know,  the  soprano — went  to 
the  manager  and  said  her  mother  said  they  must  get  more  men, 
though  it  wasn't  dancing,  or  the  rooms  looked  so  bad;  only  they 
mustn't  be  fools,  and  must  be  able  to  say  Wagner  and  Liszt  and 
things.  And  he  hoped  I  didn't  think  he  was  a  fool." 

"What  did  you  say?" 

"Said  I  couldn't  say — didn't  know  him  well  enough.  He 
might  be,  to  look  at.  Or  not,  accordingly.  I  didn't  say  that, 
you  know,  mamma." 

"I  didn't  know,  darling.     You're  very  rude  sometimes." 

"Well,  he  said  he  could  certainly  say  Wagner  and  Liszt,  and 
even  more,  because — it  was  rather  sad,  you  know,  mamma 
dear " 

"Sally,  you've  told  that  young  man  he  may  call;  you  know 
you  have!" 

"Well,  mamma  dear,  and  if  I  have,  I  don't  see  that  anybody's 
mare's  dead.  Because,  do  listen!"  Fenwick  interposed  a  paren- 
thesis. 

"I  don't  think  you  need  to  be  apprehensive,  Mrs.  Nightingale. 
He  was  an  educated  young  man  enough.  His  not  knowing  a 
French  phrase  like  that  implies  nothing.  Not  one  in  a  hundred 
would."  The  way  in  which  the  Major,  who,  of  course,  had  come 
out  of  his  doze  on  the  inrush  of  Miss  Sally,  looked  across  at 
Fenwick  as  he  said  this,  implied  an  acquired  faith  in  the  judg- 
ment of  the  latter.  Sally  resumed. 

"Just  let  me  tell  you.     His  name's  Bradshaw.     Only  he's  no 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  103 

relation  to  the  Bradshaw — in  a  yellow  cover,  you  know.  We-e-ell, 
I  don't  see  anything  in  that!"  Sally  is  defending  her  position 
against  a  smile  her  mother  and  Fenwick  have  exchanged.  They 
concede  that  there  is  nothing  in  it,  and  Sally  continues.  "Where 
was  I?  Oh,  Bradshaw;  yes.  He  was  an  awfully  promising 
violinist — awfully  promising!  And  what  do  you  think  happened? 
Why,  the  nerves  of  his  head  gave  way,  and  he  couldn't  stand  the 
vibration!  So  it  came  to  being  Cattley's  or  nothing."  Sally 
certainly  had  the  faculty  of  cutting  a  long  story  short. 

She  thought  the  story,  so  cut,  one  that  her  mother  and  Mr. 
Fenwick  might  have  shown  a  more  active  interest  in,  instead  of 
saying  it  was  time  for  all  of  us  to  be  in  bed.  She  did  not, 
however,  ascribe  to  them  any  external  preoccupation — merely  an 
abstract  love  of  Truth;  for  was  it  not  nearly  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning? 

Nevertheless,  a  little  incident  of  Mr.  Fenwick's  departure,  not 
noticed  at  the  moment,  suddenly  assumed  vitality  just  as  Sally 
was  "going  off,"  and  woke  her  up.  What  was  it  she  overheard 
her  mother  say  to  him,  just  as  he  was  leaving  the  house,  about 
something  she  had  promised  to  tell  him  some  time?  However,  re- 
flection on  it  with  waking  faculties  dissipated  the  importance  it 
seemed  to  have  half-way  to  dreamland,  and  Sally  went  con- 
tentedly to  sleep  again. 

Fenwick,  as  he  walked  to  his  lodgings  through  the  dull  Feb- 
ruary night,  did  not  regard  this  something,  whatever  it  was,  as 
a  thing  of  slight  importance  at  all.  He  may  have  been  only 
"spooney,"  but  it  was  in  a  sense  that  left  him  no  pretence  for 
thinking  that  anything  connected  with  this  beautiful  young 
widow-lady  could  be  unimportant  to  him.  On  the  contrary,  she 
was  more  and  more  filling  all  his  waking  thoughts,  and  becoming 
the  pivot  on  which  all  things  turned.  It  is  true,  he  "dismissed 
from  his  mind" — whatever  that  means — every  presumptuous 
suggestion  that  in  some  precious  time  to  come  she  might  be 
willing  to  throw  in  her  lot  with  his  own,  and  asked  himself  what 
sort  of  thing  was  he  that  he  should  allow  such  an  idea  to  come 
even  as  far  as  contradiction-point?  He,  a  poor  inexplicable 
wreck!  What  was  the  Self  he  had  to  offer,  and  what  else  had 
he?  But,  indeed,  the  speculation  rarely  got  even  to  this  matu- 
rity, so  promptly  was  it  nipped  in  the  bud.  Only,  there  were 


104  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

so  many  buds  to  nip.  He  became  aware  that  he  was  giving  a 
good  deal  of  attention  to  this  sort  of  gardening. 

Also,  he  had  a  consciousness  that  he  was  growing  morbidly 
anxious  for  the  maintenance  of  his  own  oblivion.  That  which 
was  at  first  only  a  misgiving  about  what  a  return  of  memory 
might  bring  to  light,  was  rapidly  becoming  a  definite  desire  that 
nothing  should  come  to  light  at  all.  How  could  he  look  forward 
to  that  "hypothetical"  wife  whom  he  did  not  in  the  least  believe 
in,  but  who  might  be  somewhere,  for  all  that !  He  knew  perfectly 
well  that  his  relations  with  Krakatoa  Villa  would  not  remain  the 
same,  say  what  you  might!  Of  course,  he  also  knew  that  he 
had  no  relations  there  that  need  change — most  certainly  not! 
At  this  point  an  effort  would  be  made  against  the  outcrop  of  his 
thoughts.  Those  confounded  buds  were  always  bursting.  It 
was  impossible  to  be  even  with  them. 

Perhaps  it  was  on  this  evening,  or  rather  early  morning,  as  he 
walked  home  to  his  lodgings,  that  Fenwick  began  to  recognise 
more  fully  than  he  had  done  before  Mrs.  Nightingale's  share  in 
what  was,  if  not  an  absolute  repugnance  to  a  revival  of  the  un- 
known past,  at  least  a  very  ready  acquiescence  in  his  ignorance 
of  it.  But  surely,  he  reasoned  with  himself,  if  this  cause  is  mak- 
ing me  contented  with  my  darkness,  it  is  the  more  reason  that  it 
should  be  penetrated. 

An  uncomfortable  variation  of  his  dream  of  the  resurrected 
first-floor  crossed  his  mind.  Suppose  he  had  forgotten  the 
furniture,  but  remembered  the  place,  and  gone  back  to  tenant 
it  with  a  van-load  of  new  chairs  and  tables.  What  would  he 
have  done  with  the  poor  old  furniture? 


CHAPTER  XI 

MORE   GIRLS'   CHATTER.      SWEEPS   AND   DUSTMEN.      HOW    SALLY   DISILLU- 
SIONED MR.  BRADSHAW.        OUT  OF  THE  FRYING-PAN 

IT  is  impossible  to  make  Gluck's  music  anything  but  a  fore- 
taste of  heaven,  as  long  as  there  is  any  show  of  accuracy  in  the 
way  it  is  rendered.  But,  then,  you  must  go  straight  on,  and  not 
go  over  a  difficult  phrase  until  you  know  it.  You  must  play  fair. 
Orpheus  would  probably  only  have  provoked  Cerberus — certainly 
wouldn't  have  put  him  to  sleep — if  he  had  practised,  and  counted, 
and  gone  back  six  bars  and  done  it  again. 

But  Cerberus  wasn't  at  260,  Ladbroke  Grove  Road,  on  the 
Tuesday  following  Mrs.  Erskine  Peel's  musical  party,  which  was 
the  next  time  Sally  went  to  Laetitia  Wilson.  And  it  was  as  well 
that  he  wasn't,  for  Sally  stuck  in  a  passage  at  the  end  of  one 
page  and  the  beginning  of  the  next, 'so  that  you  had  to  turn  over 
in  the  middle;  and  it  was  bad  enough,  goodness  knew,  without 
that!  It  might  really  have  been  the  north-west  passage,  so 
insuperable  did  it  seem. 

"I  shall  never  get  it  right,  I  know,  Tishy,"  said  the  viola. 

And  the  violin  replied:  "Because  you  never  pay  any  attention 
to  the  arpeggio,  dear.  It  doesn't  begin  on  the  chord.  It  begins 
on  the  G  flat.  Look  here,  now.  One — two — three.  One — two 
—three." 

"Yes,  that's  all  very  well.  Who's  going  to  turn  over  the  leaf, 
I  should  like  to  know?  I  know  I  shall  never  do  it.  Not  because 
the  nerves  of  my  head  are  giving  way,  but  because  I'm  a  duffer." 

"I  suppose  you  know  what  that  young  man  is,  dear?"  Sally 
accepts  this  quite  contentedly,  and  immediately  skips  a  great 
deal  of  unnecessary  conversation. 

"I'm  not  in  love  with  him,  Tishy  dear." 

"Didn't  say  you  were,  dear.  But  I  suppose  you  don't  know 
what  he  is,  all  the  same."  Which  certainly  seems  inconsecutive, 
but  we  really  cannot  be  responsible  for  the  way  girls  talk. 

105 


106  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Dcn't  know,  and  don't  want  to  know.     What  is  he?" 

"He's  from  Cattley's."  This  throws  a  light  on  the  conver- 
sation. It  shows  that  Sally  had  told  Lsetitia  who  she  was  going 
to  meet  at  her  mother's  next  evening.  Sally  is  not  surprised. 

"As  if  I  didn't  know  all  about  this!  As  if  he  didn't  tell  me  his 
story!" 

"Like  the  mock-turtle  in  Alice?" 

"Now,  Tishy  dear,  is  that  an  insinuation,  or  isn't  it?  Do  be 
candid!" 

"The  mock-turtle  told  his  story.     Once,  he  was  a  real  turtle." 

"Very  well,  Tishy  dear.  That's  as  much  as  to  say  Julius 
Bradshaw  is  mock.  I  can't  see  where  the  mockness  comes  in 
myself.  He  told  me  all  about  it,  plain  enough." 

"Yes — and  you  know  what  a  rage  Mrs.  Erskine  Peel  is  in,  and 
says  it  was  an  eclair cissement" 

"Why  can't  she  be  satisfied  with  English?  .  .  .  What!  Of 
course,  there  are  hundreds  of  English  equivalents  for  eclair- 
cissement.  There's  bust-up." 

"That's  only  one." 

"Tishy  dear,  don't  be  aggravating!  Keep  to  the  point.  Why 
mustn't  I  have  Julius  Bradshaw  to  play  with  if  I  like  because 
he's  at  Cattley's?" 

"You  may,  if  you  like,  dear!  As  long  as  you're  satisfied,  it's 
all  right." 

"What  fault  have  you  to  find  with  him?" 

"I!     None  at  all.     It's  all  perfectly  right." 

"You  are  the  most  irritating  girl." 

"Suppose  we  take  the  adagio  now — if  you're  rested." 

But  Sally's  back  was  up.  "Not  until  you  tell  me  what  you 
really  mean  about  Julius  Bradshaw." 

So  Lsetitia  had  her  choice  between  an  explicit  statement  of  her 
meaning,  and  an  unsupported  incursion  into  the  adagio. 

"I  suppose  you'll  admit  there  are  such  things  as  social  dis- 
tinctions?" 

Sally  wouldn't  admit  anything  whatever.  If  sociometry  was 
to  be  a  science,  it  must  be  worked  out  without  axioms  or  postu- 
lates. Lastitia  immediately  pointed  out  that  if  there  were  no 
such  things  as  social  distinctions  of  course  there  was  no  reason 
why  Mr.  Julius  Bradshaw  shouldn't  take  his  violin  to  Krakatoa 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  107 

Villa.  "Or  here,  or  anywhere,"  concluded  Laetitia,  with  a  touch 
of  pride  in  the  status  of  Ladbroke  Grove  Road.  Whereupon 
Sally  surrendered  as  much  of  her  case  as  she  had  left. 

"You  talk  as  if  he  was  a  sweep  or  a  dustman,"  said  she. 

"I  don't  see  why  you  should  mind  if  I  do,  dear.  Because,  if 
there  are  to  be  no  social  distinctions,  there's  no  reason  why  all  the 
sweeps  and  dustmen  in  Christendom  shouldn't  come  and  play 
the  violin  at  Krakatoa  Villa.  .  .  .  Now,  not  too  slow,  you  know. 
One — two — three — four — that'll  do."  Perhaps  Sally  felt  it 
would  be  a  feeble  line  of  defence  to  dwell  on  the  scarcity  of  good 
violinists  among  sweeps  and  dustmen,  and  that  was  why  she  fell 
into  rank  without  comment. 

This  short  conversation,  some  weeks  on  in  the  story,  lets  in 
one  or  two  gleams  of  side-light.  It  shows  that  Sally's  permission 
to  the  young  man  Bradshaw  to  call  at  her  mother's  had  been 
promptly  taken  advantage  of — jumped  at  is  the  right  expres- 
sion. Also  that  Miss  Wilson  had  stuck-up  ideas.  Also  that 
Sally  was  a  disciple  of  what  used  to  be  called  Socialism;  only 
really  nowadays  such  a  lot  of  things  get  called  Socialism  that 
the  word  has  lost  all  the  discriminative  force  one  values  so  much 
in  nouns  substantive.  Also  (only  we  knew  it  already)  that  Sally 
was  no  lawyer.  We  do  not  love  her  the  less,  for  our  part. 

But  nothing  in  this  interchange  of  shots  between  Sally  and  her 
friend,  nor  in  anything  she  said  to  her  mother  about  Mr.  Brad- 
shaw, gives  its  due  prominence  to  the  fact  that,  though  that  young 
gentleman  was  a  devout  worshipper  at  the  shrine  of  St.  Satisfax, 
he  had  only  become  so  on  the  Sunday  after  Miss  Sally  had 
casually  mentioned  the  latter  as  a  saint  she  frequented.  Per- 
haps she  "dismissed  it  from  her  mind,"  and  it  was  obliging 
enough  to  go.  Perhaps  she  considered  she  had  done  her  duty  by 
it  when  she  put  on  record,  in  soliloquy,  her  opinion  that  if  people 
chose  to  be  gaping  idiots  they  might,  and  she  couldn't  help  it. 
She  had  a  happy  faculty  for  doing  what  she  called  putting 
young  whippersnappers  in  their  proper  places.  This  only  meant 
that  she  managed  to  convey  to  them  that  the  lines  they  might 
elect  to  whippersnap  on  were  not  to  be  those  of  sentimental 
nonsense.  And  perhaps  she  really  dealt  in  the  wisest  way  with 
Mr.  Bradshaw's  romantic  adoration  of  her  at  a  distance  when  he 
fished  for  leave  to  call  upon  her.  The  line  he  made  his  applica- 


108  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

tion  on  was  that  he  should  so  like  to  play  her  a  rapid  movement 
by  an  unpronounceable  Slav.  She  said  directly,  why  not  come 
and  bring  his  violin  on  "Wednesday  evening  at  nine?  That  was 
her  mother's  address  on  the  card  on  the  fiddle-case.  He  must 
recollect  it — which  he  did  unequivocally. 

Now,  if  this  young  lady  had  had  a  fan,  she  might  have  tittered 
with  it,  or  blushed  slightly,  and  said,  "Oh,  Mr.  Bradshaw!"  or, 
"Oh,  sir!"  like  in  an  old  novel — one  by  Fanny  Burney,  or  the  like. 
But  she  did  nothing  of  the  sort,  and  the  consequence  was  that  he 
had,  as  it  were,  to  change  the  venue  of  his  adoration — to  make 
it  a  little  less  romantic,  in  fact.  Her  frank  and  breezy  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  had  let  in  a  gust  of  fresh  air,  and  blown 
away  all  imagination.  For  there  naturally  was  a  good  deal  of 
that  in  a  passion  based  on  a  single  interview  and  nourished  by 
weekly  stimulants  at  morning  services.  In  fact,  when  he  pre- 
sented himself  at  Krakatoa  Villa  on  Wednesday  evening  as 
invited — the  day  after  Laetitia's  remarks  about  his  social  posi- 
tion— he  was  quite  prepared  to  be  introduced  to  the  young 
woman's  fiance,  if  ...  Only,  when  he  got  as  far  as  the  if,  he 
dropped  the  subject.  As  soon  as  he  found  there  was  no  such 
person  he  came  to  believe  he  would  not  have  been  much  dis- 
concerted if  there  had  been.  How  far  this  was  true,  who  can 
say? 

He  was  personally  one  of  those  young  men  about  whom  you 
may  easily  produce  a  false  impression  if  you  describe  them  at 
all.  This  is  because  your  reader  will  take  the  bit  in  his  teeth, 
and  run  away  with  an  idea.  If  you  say  a  nose  has  a  bridge  to 
it,  this  directly  produces  in  some  minds  an  image  like  Black- 
friars  Bridge;  that  it  is  straight,  the  ^Eginetan  marbles;  that  it 
is  retrousse,  the  dog  in  that  Hogarth  portrait.  Suggest  a  cheer- 
ful countenance,  and  you  stamp  your  subject  for  ever  as  a 
Shakespearian  clown.  So  you  must  be  content  to  know  that  Mr. 
Bradshaw  was  a  good-looking  young  man,  of  dark  complexion,  and 
of  rather  over  medium  height  and  good  manners.  If  he  had  not 
been,  he  would  never,  as  an  article  of  universal  provision  for 
parties,  have  passed  muster  at  Cattley's.  He  was  like  many 
other  young  men  such  as  one  sees  in  shops;  but  then,  what  very 
nice-looking  young  men  one  sometimes  sees  there!  Sally  had 
classed  him  as  a  young  whippersnapper,  but  this  was  unjust,  if 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  109 

it  impugned  his  stature.  She  repeated  the  disparaging  epithet 
when,  in  further  justification  to  Miss  Wilson  of  her  asking  him 
to  her  mother's  house,  she  sketched  a  policy  of  conduct  to  guide 
inexperienced  girls  in  their  demeanour  towards  new  male  friends. 
"You  let  'em  come  close  to,  and  have  a  good  look,"  said  the  vulgar 
child.  "Half  of  'em  will  be  disgusted,  and  go  away  in  a  huff." 

Mrs.  Nightingale  had  known  Mr.  Bradshaw  for  a  long  time 
as  a  customer  at  a  shop  knows  the  staff  in  the  background,  mere 
office  secretions,  who  only  ooze  out  at  intervals.  For  Bradshaw 
was  not  strictly  a  counter-jumper,  although  Miss  Wilson  more 
than  once  spoke  of  him  so,  adding,  when  it  was  pointed  out  to 
her  that  theoretically  he  never  went  behind  counters,  by  jumping 
or  otherwise,  that  that  didn't  make  the  slightest  difference:  the 
principle  was  the  same. 

Sally's  mother  did  not  share  her  friend's  fancies.  But  she 
had  not  confidence  enough  in  the  stability  of  the  earth's  crust 
to  give  way  freely  to  her  liberalism,  drive  a  coach-and-six  through 
the  Classes,  and  talk  to  him  freely  about  the  shop.  She  did  not 
know  what  a  Social  Seismologist  would  say  on  the  point.  So  she 
contented  herself  with  treating  him  as  a  matter  of  course,  as  a 
slight  acquaintance  whom  she  saw  often,  merely  asking  him  if 
that  was  he.  To  which  the  reply  was  in  the  affirmative,  like 
question-time  in  the  Commons. 

"Is  this  the  Strad?  Let's  have  it  out,"  says  Sally.  For  Mr. 
Bradshaw  possessed  a  Strad.  He  brought  it  out  of  its  coffin 
with  something  of  the  solicitude  Petrarch  might  have  shown  to 
the  remains  of  Laura,  and  when  he  had  rough-sketched  its  con- 
dition of  discord  and  corrected  the  drawing,  danced  a  Hun- 
garian dance  on  it,  and  apologized  for  his  presumption  in  doing 
so.  He  played  so  very  well  that  it  certainly  did  seem  rather  a 
cruel  trick  of  fate  that  gave  him  nerves  in  his  head.  Sally  then 
said,  might  she  look  at  it?  and  played  chords  and  runs,  just  to 
feel  what  it  was  like.  Her  comment  was  that  she  wished  her 
viola  was  a  Strad. 

We  record  all  this  to  show  what,  perhaps,  is  hardly  worth  the 
showing — a  wavering  in  a  man's  mind,  and  that  man  a  young 
one.  Are  they  not  at  it  all  day  long,  all  of  them?  Do  they  do 
anything  but  waver? 

When  Sally  said  she  wished  her  viola  was  a  Strad,  Mr.  Brad- 


110  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

shaw's  mind  shortly  became  conscious  that  some  passing  spook, 
of  a  low  nature,  had  murmured  almost  inaudibly  that  it  was  a 
good  job  his  Strad  wasn't  a  viola.  "Because,  you  see,"  added  the 
spook,  "that  quashes  all  speculation  whether  you,  Mr.  Bradshaw, 
are  glad  or  sorry  you  needn't  lay  your  instrument  at  this  young 
lady's  feet.  Now,  if  immediately  after  you  first  had  that  over- 
whelming impression  of  her — got  metaphorically  torpedoed,  don't 
you  know? — such  a  wish  as  hers  had  been  expressed,  you  prob- 
ably would  have  laid  both  your  Strad  and  your  heart  at  her  feet, 
and  said  take  my  all!"  But  now  that  he  had  been  so  far  dis- 
illusioned by  Sally's  robust  and  breezy  treatment  of  the  position, 
he  was  not  quite  sure  the  spook  had  not  something  to  say  for 
himself.  Mr.  Bradshaw  was  content  to  come  down  off  his  high 
horse,  and  to  plod  along  the  dull  path  of  a  mere  musical  evening 
visitor  at  a  very  nice  house.  Pleasant,  certainly,  but  not  the  aim 
of  his  aspirations  from  afar  at  St.  Satisfax's.  His  amour  propre 
was  a  little  wounded  by  that  spook,  too.  Nothing  keeps  it  up  to 
the  mark  better  than  a  belief  in  one's  stability — in  love-matters, 
especially. 

He  was  not  quite  sure  of  the  exact  moment  the  spook  in- 
truded his  opinion,  so  we  can't  be  expected  to  know.  Perhaps 
about  the  time  Miss  Wilson  came  in  (just  as  he  was  showing  how 
carefully  he  had  listened  to  Joachim)  and  said  could  he  play 
those?  She  wished  she  could.  She  was  thrown  off  her  guard 
by  the  finished  execution,  and  for  the  moment  quite  forgot 
Cattley's  and  the  classitudes.  Sally  instantly  perceived  her 
opening.  She  would  enjoy  catching  Tishy  out  in  any  sort  of 
way.  So  she  said:  "Mr.  Bradshaw  will  show  you  how,  Tishy 
dear;  of  course  he  will.  Only,  not  now,  because  if  we  don't 
begin,  we  shan't  have  time  for  the  long  quartet."  If  you  say 
this  sort  of  things  about  strangers  in  Society,  you  really  ought 
to  give  them  a  chance.  So  thought  Laetitia  to  herself,  and 
resolved  to  blow  Sally  up  at  the  first  opportunity. 

As  for  that  culprit,  she  completed  her  work,  from  her  own 
position  of  perfect  security,  with  complacency  at  least.  And  she 
felt  at  the  end  of  her  evening  (which  we  needn't  dwell  on,  as  it 
was  all  crotchets,  minims,  and  F  sharps  and  Gr  flats)  that  her 
entrenchments  had  become  spontaneously  stronger  without  exer- 
tion on  her  part.  For  there  were  Tishy  and  Mr.  Bradshaw, 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  111 

between  whom  Sally  had  certainly  understood  there  was  a  great 
gulf  fixed,  sitting  on  the  very  same  sofa  and  talking  about  a 
Stradivarius.  She  concluded  that,  broadly  speaking,  Debrett's 
bark  is  worse  than  his  bite,  and  that  he  is,  at  heart,  a  very 
accommodating  character. 

"I  hope  you  saw  Tishy,  mamma  dear."  So  spoke  Sally  to  her 
mother,  after  the  musicians  first,  and  then  Fenwick,  had  dispersed 
their  several  ways.  Mrs.  Nightingale  seemed  very  distraite  and 
preoccupied. 

"Saw  Tishy  what,  kitten?" 

"Tishy  and  Mr.  Bradshaw  on  that  sofa." 

"No,  darling.     Oh  yes,  I  did.     What  about  them?" 

"After  all  that  rumpus  about  shop-boys!"  But  her  mother's 
attention  is  not  easy  to  engage  this  evening,  somehow.  Her 
mind  seems  somewhere  else  altogether.  But  from  where  it  is, 
it  sees  the  vulgar  child  very  plainly  indeed,  as  she  puts  up  her 
face  to  be  kissed  with  all  its  animation  on  it.  She  kisses  it, 
animation  and  all,  caressing  the  rich  black  hair  with  a  hand 
that  seems  thoughtful.  A  hand  can.  Then  she  makes  a  little 
effort  to  shake  off  something  that  draws  her  away,  and  comes 
back  rather  perfunctorily  to  her  daughter's  sphere  of  interest 
and  the  life  of  town. 

"Did  Laetitia  call  Mr.  Bradshaw  a  shop-boy,  chick?" 

"Very  nearly — at  least,  I  don't  know  what  you  call  not  calling 
anybody  shop-boy  if  she  didn't."  Her  mother  makes  a  further 
effort — comes  back  a  little  more. 

"What  did  she  say,  child?" 

"Said  you  could  always  tell,  and  it  was  no  use  my  talking,  and 
the  negro  couldn't  change  his  spots." 

"She  has  some  old-fashioned  ideas.  But  how  about  calling 
him  a  shop-boy?" 

"Not  in  words,  but  worse.  Tishy  always  goes  round  and 
round.  I  wish  she'd  say!  However,  Dr.  Vereker  quite  agrees 
with  me.  We  think  it  dishonest!" 

"What  did  Dr.  Vereker  think  of  Mr.  Bradshaw?"  We  have 
failed  to  note  that  the  doctor  was  the  'cello  in  the  quartet. 

"Now,  mamma  darling,  fancy  asking  Dr.  Prosy  what  he 
thinks!  I  wasn't  going  to.  Besides,  as  if  it  mattered  what  they 
think  of  each  other!  .  .  .  Who?  Why,  men,  of  course!" 


112  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Mr.  Fenwick's  a  man,  and  you  asked  him." 

"Mr.  Fenwick's  a  man  on  other  lines — absolutely  other.  He 
doesn't  come  in  really."  Her  mother  repeats  the  last  four  words, 
not  exactly  derisively — rather,  if  anything,  her  accent  and  her 
smile  may  be  said  to  caress  her  daughter's  words  as  she  says 
them.  She  is  such  a  silly,  but  such  a  dear  little  goose — that 
seems  the  implication. 

"We-e-11,"  says  Sally,  as  she  has  said  before,  and  we  have  tried 
to  spell  her.  "I  don't  see  anything  in  that,  because,  look  how 
reasonable!  Mr.  Fenwick's  .  .  .  Mr.  Fenwick's  .  .  .  why,  of 
course,  entirely  different.  I  say,  mother  dearest.  .  .  ." 

"What,  kitten?" 

"What  were  you  and  Mr.  Fenwick  talking  about  so  seriously 
in  the  back  drawing-room?"  The  two  are  upstairs  in  the  front 
bedroom  at  this  minute,  by-the-bye. 

"Did  you  hear  us,  darling?" 

"No,  because  of  the  row.  But  one  could  tell,  for  all  that." 
Then  Sally  sees  in  an  instant  that  it  is  something  her  mother 
is  not  going  to  tell  her  about,  and  makes  immediate  concession. 
"Where  was  the  Major  going  that  he  couldn't  come?"  she  asks. 
"He  generally  makes  a  point  of  coming  when  it's  music." 

"I  fancy  he's  dining  at  the  Hurkaru,"  says  her  mother.  But 
she  has  gone  back  into  her  preoccupation,  and  from  within  it 
externalises  an  opinion  that  we  should  be  better  in  bed,  or  we 
shall  never  be  up  in  the  morning. 


CHAPTER  XH 

WHAT  FENWICK  AND  SALLY'S  MOTHER  HAD  BEEN  SAYING  IN  THE  BACK 
DRAWING-ROOM.  OP.  999.  BACK  IN  THAT  OLD  GARDEN  AGAIN,  AND 
HOW  GERRY  COULD  NOT  SWIM.  THE  OLD  TARTINI  SONATA 

As  soon  as  ever  Mr.  Bradshaw  touched  his  violin,  and  before 
ever  he  began  to  play  his  Hungarian  Dance  on  all  four  strings 
at  once,  Mrs.  Nightingale  and  Mr.  Fenwick  went  away  into  the 
back  drawing-room,  not  to  be  too  near  the  music.  Because 
there  was  a  fire  in  both  rooms. 

In  the  interval  of  time  that  had  passed  since  Christmas  Sally 
had  contrived  to  "dismiss  from  her  mind"  Colonel  Lund's  pre- 
visions about  her  mother  and  Mr.  Fenwick.  Or  they  had  given 
warning,  and  gone  of  their  own  accord.  For  by  now  she  had 
again  fallen  into  the  frame  of  mind  which  classified  her  mother 
and  Fenwick  as  semi-elderly  people,  and,  so  to  speak,  out  of  it 
all.  So  her  mind  assented  readily  to  distance  from  the  music 
as  a  sufficient  reason  for  a  secession  to  the  back  room.  Non- 
combatants  are  just  as  well  off  the  field  of  battle. 

But  a  closer  observer  than  Sally  at  this  moment  would  have 
noticed  that  chat  in  an  undertone  had  already  set  in  in  the 
back  drawing-room  even  before  the  Hungarians  had  stopped 
dancing.  Also  that  the  applause  that  came  therefrom,  when 
they  did  stop,  had  a  certain  perfunctory  air,  as  of  plaudits 
something  else  makes  room  for,  and  comes  back  again  after. 
Not  that  she  would  have  "seen  anything  in  it"  if  she  had, 
because,  whatever  her  mother  said  or  did  was,  in  Sally's  eyes, 
right  and  normal.  Abnormal  and  bad  things  were  conceived 
and  executed  outside  the  family.  Nor,  in  spite  of  the  sotto 
vocet  was  there  anything  Sally  could  not  have  participated  in, 
whatever  exception  she  might  have  taken  to  something  of  a 
patronising  tone,  inexcusable  towards  our  own  generation  even 
in  the  most  semi-elderly  people  on  record. 

Her  mother,  at  Sally's  latest  observation  point,  had  taken 

113 


114  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

the  large  armchair  quite  on  the  other  side  of  the  rug,  to  be  as 
far  off  the  music  as  possible.  Mr.  Fenwick,  in  reply  to  a  flying 
remark  of  her  own,  she  being  at  the  moment  a  music-book  seeker, 
wouldn't  bring  the  other  large  armchair  in  front  of  the  fire  and 
be  comfortable,  thank  you.  He  liked  this  just  as  well.  Sally 
had  then  commented  on  Mr.  Fenwick's  unnatural  love  of  un- 
comfortable chairs  "when  he  wasn't  walking  about  the  room." 
She  fancied,  as  she  passed  on,  that  she  heard  her  mother  address 
him  as  "Fenwick,"  without  the  "Mr."  So  she  did. 

"You  are  a  restless  man,  Fenwick!  I  wonder  were  you  so 
before  the  accident  ?  Oh  dear !  there  I  am  on  that  topic  again  I" 
But  he  only  laughed. 

"It  doesn't  hurt  me"  he  said.  "That  reminds  me  that  I 
wanted  to  remind  you  of  something  you  said  you  would  tell 
me.  You  know — that  evening  the  kitten  went  to  the  music- 
party — something  you  would  tell  me  some  time." 

"I  know;  I'll  tell  you  when  they've  got  to  their  music,  if 
there  isn't  too  much  row.  Don't  let's  talk  while  this  new  young 
man's  playing;  it  seems  unkind.  It  won't  matter  when  they're 
all  at  it  together."  But  in  spite  of  good  resolutions  silence  was 
not  properly  observed,  and  the  perfunctory  pause  came  awk- 
wardly on  the  top  of  a  lapse.  Fenwick  then  said,  as  one  who 
avails  himself  of  an  opportunity: 

"No  need  to  wait  for  the  music;  they  can't  hear  a  word  we 
say  in  there.  We  can't  hear  a  word  they  say." 

"Because  they're  making  such  a  racket."  Mrs.  Nightingale 
paused  with  a  listening  eye,  trying  to  disprove  their  inaudibility. 
The  examination  confirmed  Fenwick.  "I  like  it,"  she  continued 
— "a  lot  of  young  voices.  It's  much  better  when  you  don't 
make  out  what  they  say.  When  you  can't  hear  a  word,  you  fancy 
some  sense  in  it."  And  then  went  on  listening,  and  Fenwick 
waited,  too.  He  couldn't  well  fidget  her  to  keep  her  promise; 
she  would  do  it  of  herself  in  time.  It  might  be  she  preferred 
talking  under  cover  of  the  music.  She  certainly  remained  silent 
till  it  came;  then  she  spoke. 

"What  was  it  made  me  say  that  to  you  about  something  I 
would  tell  you?  Oh,  I  know.  You  said,  perhaps  if  you  knew 
your  past,  you  would  not  court  catechism  about  it.  And  I  said 
that,  knowing  mine,  I  should  not  either.  Wasn't  that  it?" 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  115 

She  fixed  her  eyes  on  him  as  though  to  hold  him  to  the  truth. 
Perhaps  she  wanted  his  verbal  recognition  of  the  possibility  that 
she,  too,  like  others,  might  have  left  things  in  the  past  she  would 
like  to  forget  on  their  merits — cast-off  garments  on  the  road  of 
life.  It  may  have  been  painful  to  her  to  feel  his  faith  in  herself 
an  obstacle  to  what  she  wished  at  least  to  hint  to  him,  even  if 
she  could  not  tell  him  outright.  She  did  not  want  too  much 
divine  worship  at  her  shrine — a  ready  recognition  of  her  posi- 
tion of  mortal  frailty  would  be  so  much  more  sympathetic, 
really.  A  feeling  perhaps  traceably  akin  to  what  many  of  us 
have  felt,  that  if  our  father  the  devil — "auld  Nickie  Ben" — 
would  only  tak'  a  thought  and  mend,  as  he  aiblins  might,  he 
would  be  the  very  king  of  father  confessors.  If  details  had  to 
be  gone  into,  we  should  be  sure  of  his  sympathy. 

"Yes,  that  was  it.  And  I  suppose  I  looked  incredulous." 
Thus  Fenwick. 

"You  looked  incredulous.  I  would  sooner  you  should  believe 
me.  Would  you  hand  me  down  that  fire-screen  off  the  chimney- 
piece?  Thank  you."  She  was  hardening  herself  to  the  task 
she  had  before  her.  He  gave  her  the  screen,  and  as  he  resumed 
his  seat  drew  it  nearer  to  her.  Mozart's  Op.  999  had  just 
started,  and  it  was  a  little  doubtful  if  voices  could  be  heard 
unless,  in  Sally's  phrase,  they  were  close  to. 

"I  shall  believe  you.  Does  what  you  were  going  to  tell  me 
relate  to " 

"Go  on." 

"To  your  husband?" 

"Yes."  The  task  had  become  easier  suddenly.  She  breathed 
more  freely  about  what  was  to  come.  "I  wish  you  to  know 
that  he  may  be  still  living.  I  have  heard  nothing  to  the  con- 
trary. But  I  ought  to  speak  of  him  as  the  man  who  was  my 
husband.  He  is  no  longer  that."  Fenwick  interposed  on  her 
hesitation. 

"You  have  divorced  him?"  But  she  shook  her  head — shook 
a  long  negative.  And  Fenwick  looked  up  quickly,  and  uttered 
a  little  sharp  "Ah!"  as  though  something  had  struck  him. 
The  slow  head-shake  said  as  plain  as  words  could  have  said  it, 
"I  wish  I  could  say  yes."  So  expressive  was  it  that  Fenwick 
did  not  even  speculate  on  the  third  alternative — a  separation 


116  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

without  a  divorce.  He  saw  at  once  he  could  make  it  easier 
for  her  if  he  spoke  out  plain,  treating  the  bygone  as  a  thing 
that  could  be  spoken  of  plainly. 

"He  divorced  you?"  She  was  very  white,  but  kept  her  eyes 
steadily  fixed  on  him  over  the  fire-screen,  and  her  voice  remained 
perfectly  firm  and  collected.  The  music  went  on  intricately  all 
the  while.  She  spoke  next. 

"To  all  intents  and  purposes.  There  was  a  technical  obstacle 
to  a  legal  divorce,  but  he  tried  for  one.  We  parted  sorely  against 
my  will,  for  I  loved  him,  and  now  it  is  over  nineteen  years  since 
I  saw  him  last,  or  heard  of  him  or  from  him.  But  he  was  abso- 
lutely blameless.  Unless,  indeed,  it  is  to  be  counted  blame  to 
him  that  he  could  not  bear  what  no  other  man  could  have  borne. 
I  cannot  possibly  give  you  all  details.  But  I  wish  you  to  hear 
this  that  I  have  to  tell  you  from  myself.  It  is  painful  to  me  to 
tell,  but  it  would  be  far  worse  that  you  should  hear  it  from 
any  one  else.  I  feel  sure  it  is  safe  to  tell  you;  that  you 
will  not  talk  of  it  to  others — least  of  all  to  that  little  chick  of 
mine." 

"You  may  trust  me — indeed,  you  may — without  reserve.  I 
see  you  wish  to  tell  me  no  more,  so  I  will  not  ask  it." 

"And  blame  me  as  little  as  possible?" 

"I  cannot  blame  you." 

"Before  you  say  that,  listen  to  as  much  as  I  can  tell  you  of 
the  story.  I  was  a  young  girl  when  I  went  out  alone  to  be  mar- 
ried to  him  in  India.  We  had  parted  in  England  eight  months 
before,  and  he  had  remained  unchanged — his  letters  all  told  the 
same  tale.  I  quarrelled  with  my  mother — as  I  now  see  most  un- 
reasonably— merely  because  she  wished  to  marry  again.  Per- 
haps she  was  a  little  to  blame  not  to  be  more  patient  with  a 
headstrong,  ill-regulated  girl.  I  was  both.  It  ended  in  my  writ- 
ing out  to  him  in  India  that  I  should  come  out  and  marry  him 
at  once.  My  mother  made  no  opposition."  She  remained  silent 
for  a  little,  and  her  eyes  fell.  Then  she  spoke  with  more  effort, 
rather  as  one  who  answers  her  own  thoughts.  "No,  I  need  say 
nothing  of  the  time  between.  It  was  no  excuse  for  the  wrong  I 
did  him.  I  can  tell  you  what  that  was.  .  .  ."  It  did^not  seem 
easy,  though,  when  it  came  to  actual  words.  Fenwick  spoke 
into  the  pause. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  117 

"Why  tell  me  now?    Tell  me  another  time." 

"I  prefer  now.  It  was  this  way :  I  kept  something  back  from 
him  till  after  we  were  married — something  I  should  have  told 
him  before.  Had  I  done  so,  I  believe  to  this  moment  we  should 
never  have  parted.  But  my  concealment  threw  doubt  on  all 
else  I  said.  ...  I  am  telling  more  than  I  meant  to  tell."  She 
hesitated  again,  and  then  went  on.  "That  was  my  wrong  to 
him — the  concealment.  But,  of  course,  it  was  not  the  ground 
of  the  divorce  proceedings."  Fenwick  stopped  her  again. 

"Why  tell  me  any  more?  You  are  being  led  on — are  leading 
yourself  on — to  say  more  than  you  wish." 

"Well,  I  will  leave  it  there.  Only,  Fenwick,  understand  this : 
my  husband  was  young  and  generous  and  noble-hearted.  Had 
I  trusted  him,  I  believe  all  might  have  gone  well,  even  though 
he  .  .  ."  She  hesitated  again,  and  then  cancelled  something  un- 
said. "The  concealment  was  my  fault — the  mistrust.  That 
was  all.  Nothing  else  was  my  fault."  As  she  says  the  words 
in  praise  of  her  husband  she  finds  it  a  pleasure  to  let  her  eyes 
rest  on  the  grave,  handsome,  puzzled  face  that,  after  all,  really  is 
his.  She  catches  herself  wondering — so  oddly  do  the  under- 
currents of  mind  course  about — where  he  got  that  sharp  white 
scar  across  his  nose.  It  was  not  there  in  the  old  days. 

She  looks  at  him  until  he,  too,  looks  up,  and  their  eyes  meet. 
"Well,  then,"  she  says,  "I  will  tell  you  no  more.  Blame  me 
as  little  as  possible."  And  to  this  repetition  of  her  previous 
words  he  says  again,  "I  cannot  blame  you,"  very  emphatically. 

But  Mrs.  Nightingale  felt  perplexed  at  his  evident  sincerity; 
would  rather  he  should  have  indulged  in  truisms,  we  were  not 
all  of  us  perfect,  and  so  forth.  When  she  spoke  again,  some  bars 
of  the  music  later,  she  took  for  granted  that  his  mind,  like  hers, 
was  still  dwelling  on  his  last  words.  She  felt  half  sorry  she  had, 
so  to  speak,  switched  off  the  current  of  the  conversation. 

"If  you  will  think  over  what  I  have  told  you,  Fenwick,  you 
will  see  that  you  cannot  help  doing  so." 

"How  can  that  be?" 

"Surely !  My  husband  sought  to  divorce  me,  and  was  himself 
absolutely  blameless.  How  can  you  do  otherwise  than  blame 
me?" 

"Partly — only  partly — because  I  see  you  are  keeping  back 


118  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

something — something  that  would  exonerate  you.  I  cannot 
believe  you  were  to  blame." 

"Listen,  Fenwick!  As  I  said,  I  cannot  tell  you  the  whole; 
and  the  Major,  who  is  the  only  man  alive  who  knows  all  the 
story,  will,  I  know,  refuse  to  tell  you  anything,  even  if  you  ask 
him,  and  that  I  wish  you  not  to  do." 

"I  should  not  dream  of  asking  him." 

"Well,  he  would  refuse.  I  know  it.  But  I  want  you  to  know 
all  I  can  tell  you.  I  do  not  want  any  groundless  excuses  made 
for  me.  I  will  not  accept  any  absolution  from  any  one  on  a  false 
pretence.  You  see  what  I  mean/' 

"I  see  perfectly.  I  am  not  sure,  though,  that  you  see  my 
meaning.  But  never  mind  that.  Is  there  anything  further 
you  would  really  like  me  to  know?" 

She  waited  a  little,  and  then  answered,  keeping  her  eyes 
always  fixed  on  Fenwick :  "Yes,  there  is." 

But  at  this  moment  the  first  movement  of  Op.  999  came  to  a 
perfect  and  well  thought  out  conclusion,  bearing  in  mind  every- 
thing that  had  been  said  on  six  pages  of  ideas  faultlessly  inter- 
changed by  four  instruments,  and  making  due  allowance  for  all 
exceptions  each  had  courteously  taken  to  the  other.  But  Op.  999 
was  going  on  to  the  second  movement  directly,  and  only  tolerated 
a  pause  for  a  few  string-tightenings  and  trial-squeaks,  to  get  in 
tune,  and  the  removal  of  a  deceased  fly  from  a  piano-candle. 
The  remark  from  the  back-room  that  we  could  hear  beautifully 
in  here  seemed  to  fall  flat,  the  second  violin  merely  replying 
"All  right!"  passionlessly.  The  instruments  then  asked  each 
other  if  they  were  ready,  and  answered  yes.  Then  some  one 
counted  four  suggestively,  for  a  start,  and  life  went  on  again. 

Mrs.  Nightingale  and  Fenwick  sat  well  on  into  the  music  be- 
fore either  spoke.  He,  resolved  not  to  seem  to  seek  or  urge  any 
information  at  all;  all  was  to  come  spontaneously  from  her. 
She,  feeling  the  difficulty  of  telling  what  she  had  to  tell,  and 
always  oppressed  with  the  recollection  of  what  it  had  cost  her  to 
make  her  revelation  to  this  selfsame  man  nineteen  years  ago. 
She  wished  he  would  give  the  conversation  some  lift,  as  he  had 
done  before,  when  he  asked  if  what  she  had  to  tell  referred  to 
her  husband.  But,  although  he  would  gladly  have  repeated  his 
assistance,  he  could  see  his  way  to  nothing,  this  time,  that 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  119 

seemed  altogether  free  from  risk.  How  if  he  were  to  blunder 
into  ascribing  to  her  something  more  culpable  than  her  actual 
share  in  the  past?  She  half  guessed  this;  then,  seeing  that 
speech  must  come  from  herself  in  the  end,  took  heart  and  faced 
the  position  resolutely.  She  always  did. 

"You  know  this,  Fenwick,  do  you  not,  that  when  there  is 
a  divorce,  the  husband  takes  the  children  from  their  mother — 
always,  when  she  is  in  the  wrong;  too  often,  when  she  is  blame- 
less. I  have  told  you  I  was  the  one  to  blame,  and  I  tell  you  now 
that  though  my  husband's  application  for  a  divorce  failed,  from 
a  technical  point  of  law,  all  things  came  about  just  as  though 
he  had  succeeded.  Don't  analyse  it  now;  take  it  all  for  granted 
— you  understand?" 

"I  understand.     Suppose  it  so!     And  then?" 

"And  then  this.  That  little  monkey  of  mine — that  little 
unconscious  fiddling  thing  in  there" — and  as  Mrs.  Nightingale 
speaks,  the  sound  of  a  caress  mixes  with  the  laugh  in  her  voice ; 
but  the  pain  comes  back  as  she  goes  on — "My  Sallikin  has  been 
mine,  all  her  life !  My  poor  husband  never  saw  her  in  her  child- 
hood." As  she  says  the  word  husband  she  has  again  a  vivid  eclat 
of  the  consciousness  that  it  is  he — himself — sitting  there  beside 
her.  And  the  odd  thought  that  mixes  itself  into  this,  strange 
to  say,  is — "The  pity  of  it !  To  think  how  little  he  has  had  of 
Sally  in  all  these  years !" 

He,  for  his  part,  can  for  the  moment  make  nothing  of  this 
part  of  the  story.  He  can  give  his  head  the  lion-mane  shake 
she  knows  him  by  so  well,  but  it  brings  him  no  light.  He  is 
reduced  to  mere  slow  repetition  of  her  data ;  his  hand  before  his 
eyes  to  keep  his  brain,  that  has  to  think,  clear  of  distractions 
from  without. 

"Your  husband  never  saw  her.  She  has  been  yours  all  her 
life.  Had  she  been  your  husband's  child,  he  would  have  exer- 
cised his  so-called  rights — his  legal  rights — and  taken  her  away. 
Are  those  the  facts — so  far  ?" 

"Yes — go  on.  No — stop;  I  will  tell  you.  At  the  beginning 
of  this  year  I  should  have  been  married  exactly  twenty  years. 
Sally  is  nineteen — you  remember  her  birthday  ?" 

"Nineteen  in  August.  Now.  lot  me  think!"  Just  at  this 
moment  the  second  movement  of  Op.  999  came  to  an  end,  and 


120  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

gave  an  added  plausibility  to  the  blank  he  needed  to  ponder  in. 
The  viola  in  the  next  room  looked  round  across  her  chair-back, 
and  said,  "I  say,  mother" — to  a  repetition  of  which  Mrs.  Night- 
ingale replied  what  did  her  daughter  say?  What  she  said  was 
that  her  mother  and  Mr.  Fenwick  were  exactly  like  the  canaries. 
They  talked  as  hard  as  they  could  all  through  the  music,  and 
when  it  stopped  they  shut  up.  Wasn't  that  true?  To  which 
her  mother  answered  affirmatively,  adding,  "You'll  have  to  put 
a  cloth  over  us,  chick,  and  squash  us  out." 

Fenwick  was  absorbed  in  thought,  and  did  not  notice  this 
interlude.  He  did  not  speak  until  the  music  began  again.  Then 
he  said  abruptly: 

"I  see  the  story  now.     Sally's  father  was  not  .  .  ." 

"Was  not  my  husband."  There  is  not  a  trace  of  cowardice 
or  hesitation  in  her  filling  out  the  sentence.  There  is  pain, 
but  that  again  dies  away  in  her  voice  as  she  goes  on  to  speak  of 
her  daughter.  "I  do  not  connect  him  with  her  now.  She  is — 
a  thing  of  itself — a  thing  of  herself!  She  is — she  is  Sally. 
Well,  you  see  what  she  is." 

"I  see  she  is  a  very  dear  little  person."  Then  he  seems  to 
want  to  say  something  and  to  pause  on  the  edge  of  it;  then,  in 
answer  to  a  "yes"  of  encouragement  from  her,  continues,  "I 
was  going  to  say  that  she  must  be  very  like  him — like  her 
father." 

"Very  like?"  she  asks — "or  very  unlike?  Which  did  you 
mean?" 

"I  mean  very  like  as  to  looks.    Because  she  is  so  unlike  you." 

"She  is  like  enough  to  him,  as  far  as  looks  go.  It's  her  only 
fault,  poor  chick,  and  she  can't  help  it.  Besides,  I  mind  it  less 
now  that  I  have  more  than  half  forgiven  him,  for  her  sake." 
The  tone  of  her  voice  mixes  a  sob  and  a  laugh,  although  she  utters 
neither,  and  is  quite  collected.  "But  she  is  quite  unlike  him 
in  character.  Sally  is  not  an  angel — oh  dear,  no !"  The  laugh 
predominates.  "But " 

"But  what?" 

"She  is  not  a  devil."  And  as  she  said  this  the  pain  was  all 
back  again  in  the  dropped  half-whisper  in  which  she  said  it. 
And  in  that  moment  Fenwick  made  his  guess  of  the  whole  story, 
which  maybe  went  nearer  than  we  shall  do  with  the  information 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  121 

we  have  to  go  upon.  In  this  narrative,  as  we  tell  it  now,  that 
story  is  known  only  to  its  chief  actor,  and  to  her  old  friend  who 
is  now  dining  at  the  Hurkaru  Club. 

The  third  movement  of  Op.  999  was  not  a  very  long  one, 
and,  coming  to  an  end  at  this  point,  seemed  to  supply  a  reason 
for  silence  that  was  not  unwelcome  in  the  back  drawing-room. 
The  end  of  a  trying  conversation  had  been  attained.  Both 
speakers  could  now  affect  attention  to  what  was  going  on  in 
the  front.  This  had  taken  the  form  of  a  discussion  between 
Mr.  Julius  Bradshaw  and  Miss  Laetitia  Wilson,  who  was  anxious 
to  transfer  her  position  of  first  violin  to  that  young  gentleman. 
We  regret  to  have  to  report  that  Miss  Sally's  agreement  with  her 
friend  about  the  desirability  had  been  sotto  voce'd  in  these  terms : 
"Yes,  Tishy  dear!  Do  make  the  shop-boy  play  the  last  move- 
ment." And  Miss  Wilson  had  then  suggested  it,  saying  there 
was  a  bit  she  knew  she  couldn't  play.  "And  you  expect  me 
to !"  said  the  owner  of  the  Strad,  "when  I  haven't  so  much  as 
looked  at  it  for  three  years  past."  To  which  Miss  Sally  appended 
a  marginal  note,  "Stuff  and  nonsense!  Don't  be  affected,  Mr. 
Bradshaw."  However,  after  compliments,  and  more  protesta- 
tions from  its  owner,  the  Strad  was  brought  into  hotchpot,  and 
Lffititia  abdicated. 

"Won't  you  come  and  sit  in  here,  to  be  away  from  the  music  ?" 
said  the  back-drawing-room.  But  Laetitia  wanted  to  see  Mr. 
Bradshaw's  fingering  of  that  passage.  We  are  more  interested 
in  the  back  drawing-room. 

Like  many  other  athletic  men — and  we  have  seen  how  strongly 
this  character  was  maintained  in  Fenwick — he  hated  armchairs. 
Even  in  the  uncomfortable  ones — by  which  we  mean  the  ones  we 
dislike — his  restless  strength  would  not  remain  quiet  for  any 
length  of  time.  At  intervals  he  would  get  up  and  walk  about 
the  room,  exasperating  the  sedate,  and  then  making  good- 
humoured  concession  to  their  weakness.  Mrs.  Nightingale  could 
remember  all  this  in  Gerry  the  boy,  twenty  years  ago. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  that  music,  probably  he  would  have 
walked  about  the  room  over  that  stiff  problem  in  dates  he  had 
just  grappled  with.  As  it  was,  he  remained  in  his  chair  to  solve 
it — that  is,  if  he  did  solve  it.  Possibly,  the  moment  he  saw  some- 


122  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

thing  important  turned  on  the  date  of  Sally's  birth,  he  jumped 
across  the  solution  to  the  conclusion  it  was  to  lead  to.  Given 
the  conclusion,  the  calculation  had  no  interest  for  him. 

But  the  story  his  mind  constructed  to  fit  that  conclusion 
stunned  him.  It  knitted  his  brows  and  clenched  his  teeth  for 
him.  It  made  the  hand  that  had  been  hanging  loose  over  the 
uncomfortable  chair-back  close  savagely  on  something — a  throat, 
perhaps,  that  his  imagination  supplied?  How  like  he  looked, 
thought  his  companion,  to  himself  on  one  occasion  twenty  years 
ago !  But  his  anger  now  was  on  her  behalf  alone ;  it  was  not  so 
in  that  dreadful  time  she  hoped  he  might  never  recollect.  If 
only  his  memory  of  all  the  past  might  remain  as  now,  a  book 
with  a  locked  clasp  and  a  lost  key ! 

She  watched  him  as  he  sat  there,  and  saw  a  calmer  mood  come 
back  upon  him.  Each  wanted  a  raison  d'etre  for  a  silent  pause, 
and  neither  was  sorry  for  the  desire  each  might  ascribe  to  the 
other  of  hearing  the  last  movement  of  the  music  undisturbed. 
Op.  999  was  prospering,  there  was  no  doubt  of  it!  Lastitia 
Wilson  was  a  very  fair  example  of  a  creditable  career  at  the 
E.A.M.  But  she  was  not  quite  equal  to  this  unfortunate  victim 
of  a  too  nervous  system,  who  could  play  like  an  angel  for  half  an 
hour,  mind  you — not  more.  This  was  his  half-hour;  and  it 
was  quite  reasonable  for  Fenwick  to  take  for  granted  that  his 
hostess  would  like  to  pay  attention  to  it,  or  vice-versa.  So  both 
sat  silent. 

But  as  she  sat  listening  to  Op.  999,  and  watching  wonderingly 
the  strange  victim  of  oblivion,  of  whom  she  knew — scarcely  ac- 
knowledging it  always,  though — that  she  had  once  for  a  short 
time  called  him  husband,  her  mind  went  back  to  an  old  time 
when  he  and  she  were  young:  before  the  tragic  memory  that 
she  sometimes  thought  might  have  been  lived  down  had  come 
into  her  life  and  his.  And  a  scene  rose  up  before  her  out  of  that 
old  time — a  scene  of  young  men,  almost  boys,  and  girls  who  but 
the  other  day  were  in  the  nursery,  playing  lawn-tennis  in  a 
happy  garden,  with  never  a  thought  for  anything  in  this  wide 
world  but  themselves,  and  each  other,  and  the  scoring,  and 
how  jolly  it  would  be  in  the  house-boat  at  Henley  to-morrow. 
And  then  this  garden-scene  a  little  later  in  the  moonrise,  and 
herself  and  one  of  the  players,  who  was  Gerry — this  very  man — 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  123 

left  by  the  other  two  to  themselves,  on  a  garden-seat  his  arm 
hung  over,  just  as  it  did  now  over  that  chair-back.  How  exactly 
he  sat  then  as  he  sat  now,  his  other  hand  in  charge  of  the  foot  he 
had  crossed  on  his  knee,  just  as  now,  to  keep  it  from  a  slip  along 
his  lawn-tennis  flannels!  How  well  she  could  remember  the 
tennis-shoe,  with  its  ribbed  rubber  sole,  in  place  of  that  highly- 
polished  calf  thing!  And  she  could  remember  every  word  they 
said,  there  in  the  warm  moonlight. 

"What  a  silly  boy  you  are!" 

"I  don't  care.  I  shall  always  say  exactly  the  same.  I  can't 
help  it." 

"All  silly  boys  say  that  sort  of  thing.  Then  they  change 
their  minds." 

"I  never  said  it  to  any  girl  in  my  life  but  you,  Eosey.  I 
never  thought  it.  I  shall  never  say  it  again  to  any  one  but  you/' 

"Don't  be  nonsensical !" 

"I'm  not!    It'stnLe." 

"Wait  till  you've  been  six  months  in  India,  Gerry." 

And  then  the  recollection  of  what  followed  made  it  seem 
infinitely  strange  to  her  that  Fenwick  should  remain,  as  he  had 
remained,  immovable.  If  the  hand  she  could  remember  so  well, 
for  all  it  had  grown  so  scarred  and  service-worn  and  hairy,  were 
to  take  hers  as  it  did  then,  as  they  sat  together  on  the  garden- 
seat,  would  it  shake  now  as  formerly  ?  If  his  great  strong  arm 
her  memory  still  felt  round  her  were  to  come  again  now,  would 
she  feel  in  it  the  tremor  of  the  passion  he  was  shaken  by  then ; 
and  in  caresses  such  as  she  half  reproved  him  for,  but  had  no 
heart  to  resist,  the  reality  of  a  love  then  young  and  strong  and  full 
of  promise  for  the  days  to  come?  And  now — what?  The 
perished  trunk  of  an  uprooted  tree :  the  shadow  of  a  half-forgotten 
dream. 

As  he  sat  silent,  only  now  and  then  by  some  slight  sign,  some 
new  knitting  of  the  brow  or  closing  of  the  hand,  showing  the 
tension  of  the  feeling  produced  by  the  version  his  mind  had 
made  of  the  story  half  told  to  him — as  he  sat  thus,  under  a  kind 
of  feint  of  listening  to  the  music,  the  world  grew  stranger  and 
stranger  to  his  companion.  She  had  fancied  herself  strong 
enough  to  tell  the  story,  but  had  hardly  reckoned  with  his 
possible  likeness  to  himself.  She  had  thought  that  she  could 


124  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

keep  the  twenty  years  that  had  passed  clearly  in  her  mind; 
could  deal  with  the  position  from  a  good,  sensible,  matfer-of-fact 
standpoint. 

The  past  was  past,  and  happily  forgotten  by  him.  The  pres- 
ent had  still  its  possibilities,  if  only  the  past  might  remain  for- 
gotten. Surely  she  could  rely  on  herself  to  find  the  nerve  to 
go  through  what  was,  after  all,  a  mere  act  of  duty.  Knowing, 
or  rather  feeling,  that  Fenwick  would  ask  her  to  marry  him  as 
soon  as  he  dared — it  was  merely  a  question  of  time — her  duty 
was  plainly  to  forewarn  him — to  make  sure  that  he  was  alive  to 
the  antecedents  of  the  woman  he  was  offering  himself  to.  She 
knew  his  antecedents;  as  many  as  she  wished  to  know.  If  the 
twenty  years  of  oblivion  concealed  irregularity,  immorality — 
well,  was  she  not  to  blame  for  it?  Was  ever  a  better  boy  than 
Gerry,  as  she  knew  him,  to  the  day  they  parted?  It  was  her 
fault  or  misfortune  that  had  cast  him  all  adrift.  As  to  that 
troublesome  question  of  a  possible  wife  elsewhere,  in  the  land 
of  his  oblivion,  she  had  quite  made  up  her  mind  about  that. 
Every  effort  had  been  made  to  find  such  a  one,  and  failed.  If 
she  reappeared,  it  would  be  her  own  duty  to  surrender  Fenwick — 
if  he  wished  to  go  back.  If  he  did  not,  and  his  other  wife  wished 
to  be  free,  surely  in  the  chicane  of  the  law-courts  there  must  be 
some  shuffle  that  could  be  for  once  made  useful  to  a  good  end. 

Mrs.  Nightingale  had  reasoned  it  all  out  in  cold  blood,  and  she 
was,  as  we  have  told  you,  a  strong  woman.  But  had  she  really 
taken  her  own  measure?  Could  she  sit  there  much  longer; 
with  him  beside  her,  and  his  words  of  twenty  years  ago  sounding 
in  her  ears ;  almost  the  feeling  of  the  kisses  she  had  so  dutifully 
pointed  out  the  lawlessness,  and  allowed  the  repetition  of,  in 
that  old  forgotten  time — forgotten  by  him,  never  by  her!  Was 
it  possible  to  bear,  without  crying  out,  the  bewilderment  of  a 
mixed  existence  such  as  that  his  presence  and  identity  forced 
upon  her,  wrenching  her  this  way  and  that,  interweaving  the 
woof  of  then  with  the  weft  of  now,  even  as  in  that  labyrinth  of 
musical  themes  and  phrases  in  the  other  room  they  crossed  and 
recrossed  one  another  at  the  bidding  of  each  instrument  as  its 
turn  came  to  tell  its  tale?  Her  brain  reeled  and  her  heart  ached 
under  the  intolerable  stress.  Could  she  still  hold  on,  or  would 
she  be,  after  all,  driven  to  make  some  excuse,  and  run  for  the 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  125 

solitude  of  her  own  room  to  live  down  the  tension  as  best  she 
might  alone? 

The  music  itself  came  to  her  assistance.  Its  triumphant 
strength,  in  an  indescribable  outburst  of  hope  or  joy  or  mastery 
of  Fate,  as  it  drew  near  to  its  final  close,  spoke  to  her  of  the  great 
ocean  that  lies  beyond  the  crabbed  limits  of  our  stinted  lives, 
the  boundless  sea  our  rivulets  of  life  steal  down  to,  to  be  lost  in ; 
and  while  it  lasted  made  it  possible  for  her  to  be  still.  She 
took  her  eyes  from  Fenwick,  and  waited.  When  she  raised  them 
again,  in  the  silence  Op.  999  came  to  an  end  in,  she  saw  that  he 
had  moved.  His  face  had  gone  into  his  hands ;  and  as  she  looked 
up,  his  old  action  of  rubbing  them  into  his  loose  hair,  and  shak- 
ing it,  had  come  back,  and  his  strong  identity  with  his  boyhood, 
dependent  on  the  chance  of  a  moment,  had  disappeared.  He 
got  up  suddenly,  and  after  a  turn  across  the  room  he  was  in, 
walked  into  the  other  one,  and  contributed  his  share  to  the  babble 
of  felicitation  or  comment  that  followed  what  was  clearly  thought 
an  achievement  in  musical  rendering. 

"Oh  dear,  oh  dear!"  said  Laetitia  Wilson.  "Was  ever  a  poor 
girl  so  sat  upon  ?  I  feel  quite  flat !"  This  was  not  meant  to  be 
taken  too  much  au  pied  de  la  lettre.  It  was  merely  a  method  of 
praise  of  Mr.  Bradshaw. 

"But  what  a  jolly  shame  you  had  to  give  it  up!"  This  was 
Sally  in  undisguised  admiration.  But  in  Mr.  Julius  Bradshaw's 
eyes,  Sally's  identity  had  undergone  a  change.  Her  breezy 
frankness  had  made  hay  of  a  grande  passion,  and  was  blowing 
the  hay  all  over  the  field.  He  had  come  close  to,  and  had  a  good 
look;  but  he  will  hardly  go  away  in  a  huff,  although  he  feels  a 
little  silly  over  his  public  worship  of  these  past  weeks.  Just 
at  this  moment  of  the  story,  however,  he  is  very  apologetic 
towards  Miss  Wilson;  on  whom,  if  she  reports  correctly,  he  has 
sat.  He  tries  no  pretences  with  a  view  to  her  reinstatement, 
even  on  a  par  with  himself.  He  knows,  and  every  one  knows, 
they  would  be  seen  through  immediately.  It  is  no  use  assuring 
her  she  is  a  capital  player,  of  her  years.  Much  better  let  it 
alone ! 

"Are  you  any  the  worse,  Mr.  Bradshaw?"  says  Dr.  Vereker. 
Obviously,  as  a  medical  authority,  it  is  his  duty  to  "voice" 
this  inquiry.  So  he  voices  it. 


126  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"N — no;  but  that's  about  as  much  as  I  can  do,  with  safety. 
It  won't  do  to  spoil  my  night's  rest,  and  be  late  at  the  shop." 
It  was  easy  to  talk  about  the  shop  with  perfect  unreserve  after 
such  a  performance  as  that. 

"Oh  dear!  we  are  so  sorry  for  you!"  Thus  the  two  girls. 
And  concurrence  comes  in  various  forms  from  Vereker,  Fenwick, 
and  the  pianist,  whom  we  haven't  mentioned  before.  He  was 
a  cousin  of  Miss  Wilson's,  and  was  one  of  those  unfortunate 
young  men  who  have  no  individuality  whatever.  But  pianists 
have  to  be  human  unless  you  can  afford  a  pianola.  You  may 
speak  of  them  as  Mr.  What's-his-name,  or  Miss  Thingummy,  but 
you  must  give  them  tea  or  coffee  or  cake  or  sandwiches,  or  what- 
ever is  brought  in  on  a  tray.  This  young  man's  name,  we  believe, 
was  Elsley — Nobody  Elsley,  Miss  Sally  in  her  frivolity  had 
thought  fit  to  christen  him.  You  know  how  in  your  own  life 
people  come  in  and  go  out,  and  you  never  know  anything  about 
them.  Even  so  this  young  man  in  this  story. 

"I  was  very  sorry  for  myself,  I  assure  you" — it  is  Bradshaw 
who  speaks — "when  I  had  to  make  up  my  mind  to  give  it  up. 
But  it  couldn't  be  helped !"  He  speaks  without  reserve,  but  as 
of  an  unbearable  subject ;  in  fact,  Sally  said  afterwards  to  Tishy, 
"it  seemed  as  if  he  was  going  to  cry."  He  doesn't  cry,  though, 
but  goes  on :  "At  one  time  I  really  thought  I  should  have  gone 
and  jumped  into  the  river." 

"Why  didn't  you?"  asks  Sally.    "I  should  have." 

"Yes,  silly  Sally !"  says  Laetitia ;  "and  then  you  would  have 
swum  like  a  fish.  And  the  police  would  have  pulled  you  out. 
And  you  would  have  looked  ridiculous!" 

But  Sally  is  off  on  a  visit  to  her  mother  in  the  next 
room. 

"Tired,  mammy  darling?" 

She  kisses  her,  and  her  mother  answers :  "Yes,  love,  a  little." 
and  kisses  her  back. 

"Doesn't  he  play  beautifully,  mother?"  says  Sally. 

But  her  mother  says  "Yes"  absently.  Her  attention  is  taken 
off  by  something  else.  What  is  wrong  with  Mr.  Fenwick? 
Sally  doesn't  think  anything  is.  It's  only  his  way. 

"I'm  sure  there's  something  wrong,"  says  Mrs.  Nightingale, 
and  gets  up  to  go  into  the  front-room  rather  wearily.  "I  shall 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  127 

go  to  bed  soon,  poppet,"  she  says,  "and  leave  you  to  do  the 
honours.  Is  anything  wrong,  doctor?"  She  speaks  under  her 
voice  to  Vereker,  looking  very  slightly  round  at  Fenwick,  who, 
after  the  movement  that  alarmed  her — a  rather  unusually 
marked  head-shake  and  pressure  of  his  hands  on  his  eyes — is 
standing  looking  down  at  the  fire,  on  the  rug  with  his  back  to 
her,  as  she  speaks  to  Vereker. 

"I  fancy  he's  had  what  he  calls  a  recurrence,"  says  the  doctor. 
"Nothing  to  hurt.  These  half -recollections  will  go  on  until  the 
memory  comes  back  in  earnest.  It  may  some  time." 

"Are  you  talking  about  me,  doctor?"  His  attention  may 
have  been  caught  by  a  reflection  in  a  glass  before  him.  "Yes, 
it  was  a  very  queer  recurrence.  Something  about  lawn-tennis. 
Only  it  had  to  do  with  what  Miss  Wilson  said  about  the  police 
fishing  Sally  out  of  the  water."  He  looks  round  for  Miss  Wilson, 
but  she  is  at  the  other  end  of  the  room  on  a  sofa  talking  to 
Bradshaw  about  the  Strad,  as  recorded  once  before.  Sally 
testifies : 

"Tishy  said  it  wouldn't  work — trying  to  drown  yourself  if 
you  could  swim.  No  more  it  would." 

"But  why  should  that  make  me  think  of  lawn-tennis?  It 
did."  He  looks  seriously  distressed  by  it — can  make  nothing 
out. 

"Kitten,"  says  Sally's  mother  to  her  suddenly,  "I  think  I 
shall  go  away  to  bed.  I'm  feeling  very  tired." 

She  says  good-night  comprehensively,  and  departs.  But  she 
is  so  clearly  the  worse  for  something  that  her  daughter  follows 
her  to  see  that  the  something  is  not  serious.  Outside  she  re- 
assures Sally,  who  returns.  Oh  no,  she  is  only  tired;  really 
nothing  else. 

But  what  drove  her  out  of  the  room  was  a  feeling  that  she 
must  be  alone  and  silent.  Could  her  position  be  borne  at  all? 
Yes,  with  patience  and  self-control.  But  that  "why  should  it 
make  me  think  of  lawn-tennis  ?"  was  trying.  Not  only  the  pain 
of  still  more  revived  association,  but  the  fear  that  his  memory 
might  travel' still  further  into  the  past.  It  was  living  on  the 
edge  of  the  volcano. 

Her  own  memory  had  followed  on,  too,  taking  up  the  thread 
of  that  old  interview  in  the  garden  of  twenty  years  ago.  She 


128  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

had  felt  again  the  clasp  of  his  arm,  the  touch  of  his  hand;  had 
heard  his  voice  of  passionate  protest — protest  against  the  idea 
that  he  could  ever  forget.  And  she  had  then  pretended  to  make 
a  half-joke  of  his  earnestness.  What  would  he  do  now,  really, 
if  she  were  to  tell  him  she  preferred  his  great  friend  Arthur 
Fenwick  to  him?  That  was  nonsense,  he  said.  She  knew  she 
didn't.  Besides,  Arthur  wanted  Jessie  Nairn.  Why,  didn't 
they  waltz  all  the  waltzes  at  the  party  last  week?  .  .  .  Well,  so 
did  we,  for  that  matter,  ail-but.  .  .  .  And  just  look  how  they 
had  run  away  together !  Wasn't  that  them  coming  back  ?  Yes, 
it  was ;  and  artificial  calm  ensued,  and  more  self-contained  man- 
ners. But  then,  before  the  other  two  young  lovers  could  rejoin 
them,  she  had  time  for  a  word  more. 

"No,  dear  Gerry,  seriously.  If  I  were  to  write  out  no  to 
you  in  India — a  great  big  final  NO — then  what  do  you  think  you 
would  do?" 

"I  know  what  I  think  I  should  do.  I  should  throw  myself 
into  the  Hooghly  or  the  Ganges." 

"You  silly  boy!  You  would  swim  about,  whether  you  liked 
or  no.  And  then  Jemadars,  or  Shastras,  or  Sudras,  or  some- 
thing would  come  and  pull  you  out.  And  then  how  ridiculous 
you  would  look!" 

"No,  Eosey,  because  I  can't  swim.     Isn't  it  funny?" 

Then  she  recollected  his  friend's  voice  striking  in  with: 
"What's  that?  Gerry  Palliser  swim!  Of  course  he  can't.  He 
can  wrestle,  or  run,  or  ride,  or  jump;  and  he's  the  best  man  I 
know  with  the  gloves  on.  But  swim  he  cant!  That's  flat!" 
Also  how  Gerry  had  then  told  eagerly  how  he  was  nearly  drowned 
once,  and  Arthur  fished  him  up  from  the  bottom  of  Abingdon 
Lock.  The  latter  went  on: 

"It  was  after  that  we  tattooed  each  other,  his  name  on  my 
arm,  my  name  on  his,  so  as  not  to  quarrel.  You  know,  I  sup- 
pose, that  men  who  tattoo  each  other's  arms  can't  quarrel  if 
they  try?"  Arthur  showed  "A.  Palliser,"  tattooed  blue  on  his 
arm.  Both  young  men  were  very  grave  and  earnest  about  the 
safeguard.  And  then  she  remembered  a  question  she  asked, 
and  how  both  replied  with  perfect  gravity:  "Of  course,  sure 
to!"  The  question  had  been: — Was  it  invariable  that  all  men 
quarrelled  if  one  saved  the  other  from  drowning  ? 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  129 

She  sits  upstairs  alone  by  the  fire  in  her  bedroom,  and  dreams 
again  through  all  the  past,  except  the  nightmare  of  her  life — 
that  she  always  shudders  away  from.  Sally  will  come  up  pres- 
ently, and  then  she  will  feel  ease  again.  Now,  it  is  a  struggle 
against  fever. 

She  can  hear  plainly  enough — for  the  house  is  but  a  London 
suburban  villa — the  strains  from  the  drawing-room  of  what  is 
possibly  the  most  hackneyed  violin  music  in  the  world — the 
Tartini  (so-called)  Devil  Sonata — every  phrase,  every  run,  every 
chord  an  enthralling  mystery  still,  an  utterance  none  can  ex- 
plain, an  inexhaustible  thing  no  age  can  wither,  and  no  custom 
stale.  It  is  so  soothing  to  her  that  it  matters  little  if  it  makes 
them  late.  But  that  young  man  will  destroy  his  nerves  to  a 
certainty  outright. 

Then  comes  the  chaos  of  dispersal — the  broken  fragments  of 
the  intelligible  a  watchful  ear  may  pick  out.  Dr.  Vereker  won't 
have  a  cab;  he  will  leave  the  'cello  till  next  time,  and  walk. 
Mr.  Bradshaw  wants  to  get  to  Bayswater.  Of  course,  that's  all 
in  our  way — we  being  Miss  Wilson  and  the  cousin,  the  nonentity. 
We  can  give  Mr.  Bradshaw  a  lift  as  far  as  he  goes,  and  then  he 
can  take  the  growler  on.  Then  more  good-nights  are  wished 
than  the  nature  of  things  will  admit  of  before  to-morrow,  Fen- 
wick  and  Vereker  light  something  to  smoke,  with  a  preposterous 
solicitude  to  use  only  one  tandsticker  between  them,  and  walk 
away  umbrella-less.  From  which  we  see  that  "it"  is  holding 
up.  Then  comes  silence,  and  a  consciousness  of  a  policeman 
musing,  and  suspecting  doors  have  been  left  stood  open. 

And  it  was  then  Sally  went  upstairs  and  indited  her  friend 
for  sitting  on  that  sofa  after  calling  him  a  shop-boy.  And  she 
didn't  forget  it,  either,  for  after  she  and  her  mother  were  in  bed, 
and  presumably  better,  she  called  out  to  her. 

"I  say,  mammy !" 

"What,  dear?" 

"Isn't  that  St.  John's  Church?" 

"Isn't  which  St.  John's  Church?" 

"Where  Tishy  goes?" 

"Yes,  Ladbroke  Grove  Road.     Why?" 

"Because  now  Mr.  Bradshaw  will  go  there — public  worship!" 

"Will  he,  dear?     Suppose  we  go  to  sleep."     But  she  really 


130  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

meant  "you,"  not  "we" ;  for  it  was  a  long  time  before  she  went 
to  sleep  herself.  She  had  plenty  to  think  of,  and  wanted  to  be 
quiet,  conscious  of  Sally  in  the  neighbourhood. 

We  hope  our  reader  was  not  misled,  as  we  ourselves  were, 
when  Mrs.  Nightingale  first  saw  the  name  on  Fenwick's  arm, 
into  supposing  that  she  accepted  it  as  his  real  name.  She  knew 
better.  But  then,  how  was  she  to  tell  him  his  name  was  Pal- 
liser?  Think  it  over. 


CHAPTER 

OF  A  SLEEPLESS  NIGHT  MRS.  NIGHTINGALE  HAD,  AND  HOW  SALLY  WOKE 


UP   AND  TALKED 


WAS  it  possible,  thought  Rosalind  in  the  sleepless  night  that 
followed,  that  the  recurrence  of  the  tennis-garden  in  Fenwick's 
mind  might  grow  and  grow,  and  be  a  nucleus  round  which  the 
whole  memory  of  his  life  might  re-form?  Even  so  she  had  seen, 
at  a  chemical  lecture,  a  supersaturated  solution,  translucent  and 
spotless,  suddenly  fill  with  innumerable  ramifications  from  one 
tiny  crystal  dropped  into  it.  Might  not  this  shred  of  memory 
chance  to  be  a  crystal  of  the  right  salt  in  the  solvent  of  his 
mind,  and  set  going  a  swift  arborescence  to  penetrate  the  whole  ? 
Might  not  one  branch  of  that  tree  be  a  terrible  branch — one 
whose  leaves  and  fruit  were  poisoned  and  whose  stem  was 
clothed  with  thorns?  A  hideous  metaphor  of  the  moment — call 
it  the  worst  in  her  life — when  her  young  husband,  driven  mad 
with  the  knowledge  that  had  just  forced  its  way  into  his  reluctant 
mind,  had  almost  struck  her  away  from  him,  and  with  angry 
words,  of  which  the  least  was  traitress,  had  broken  through  the 
effort  of  her  hands  to  hold  him,  and  left  her  speechless  in  her 
despair. 

It  was  such  a  nightmare  idea,  this  anticipation  that  next  time 
she  met  Gerry's  eyes  she  might  see  again  the  anger  that  was 
in  them  on  that  blackest  of  her  few  married  days,  might  see 
him  again  vanish  from  her,  this  time  never  to  return.  And  it 
spread  an  ever  growing  horror,  greater  and  greater  in  the  silencte 
and  the  darkness  of  the  night,  till  it  filled  all  space  and  became 
a  power  that  thrilled  through  every  nerve,  and  denied  the  right 
of  any  other  thing  in  the  infinite  void  to  be  known  or  thought 
of.  Which  of  us  has  not  been  left,  with  no  protection  but  our 
o\vn  weak  resolutions,  to  the  mercy  of  a  dominant  idea  in  the 

131 


132  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

still  hours  when  others  were  near  us  sleeping  whom  we  might 
not  wake  to  say  one  word  to  to  save  us  ? 

What  would  his  face  be  like — how  would  his  voice  sound — 
when  she  saw  him  next?  Or  would  some  short  and  cruel  letter 
come  to  say  he  had  remembered  all,  and  now — for  all  the  grati- 
tude he  owed  her — he  could  not  bear  to  look  upon  her  face  again, 
hers  who  had  done  him  such  a  wrong !  If  so,  what  should  she — 
what  could  she  do? 

There  was  only  one  counter-thought  to  this  that  brought  with 
it  a  momentary  balm.  She  would  send  Sally  to  him  to  beg, 
beseech,  implore  him  not  to  repeat  his  headstrong  error  of  the 
old  years,  to  swear  to  him  that  if  only  he  could  know  all  he 
would  forgive — nay,  more,  that  if  he  could  know  quite  all — the 
very  whole  of  the  sad  story — not  only  would  he  forgive,  but  rather 
seek  forgiveness  for  himself  for  the  too  harsh  judgment  he  so 
rashly  formed. 

What  should  she  say  to  Sally?  how  should  she  instruct  her 
to  plead  for  her  ?  Never  mind  that  now.  All  she  wanted  in  her 
lonely,  nervous  delirium  was  the  ease  the  thought  gave  her, 
the  mere  thought  of  the  force  of  Sally's  fixed,  immovable  belief — 
that  she  was  certain  of — that  whatsoever  her  mother  had  done 
was  right.  Never  mind  the  exact  amount  of  revelation  she  would 
have  to  make  to  Sally.  She  might  surely  indulge  the  idea,  just 
to  get  at  peace  somehow,  till — as  pray  Heaven  it  might  turn 
out — she  should  know  that  Gerry's  mind  was  still  unconscious 
of  its  pact.  The  chances  were,  so  she  thought  mechanically  to 
herself,  that  all  her  alarms  were  groundless. 

And  at  the  first — strange  as  it  is  to  tell — Sally's  identity  was 
only  that  of  the  daughter  she  had  now,  that  filled  her  life,  and 
gave  her  the  heart  to  live.  She  was  the  Sally  space  was  full 
of  for  her.  What  she  was,  and  why  she  was,  merged,  as  it  usually 
did,  in  the  broad  fact  of  her  existence.  But  there  was  always 
the  chance  that  this  what  and  why — two  bewildering  imps — 
should  flaunt  their  unsolved  conundrum  through  her  mother's 
baffled  mind.  There  they  were,  sure  enough  in  the  end,  enjoying 
her  inability  to  answer,  dragging  all  she  prayed  daily  to  be  better 
able  to  forget  out  into  the  light  of  the  memory  they  had  kindled. 
There  they  were,  chuckling  over  her  misery,  and  hiding — so 
Eosalind  feared — a  worse  question  than  any,  keeping  it  back  for 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  133 

a  final  stroke  to  bring  her  mental  fever  to  its  height — how  could 
Sally  be  the  daughter  of  a  devil  and  her  soul  be  free  from  the 
taint  of  his  damnation? 

If  Kosalind  had  only  been  well  read  in  the  mediaeval  classics, 
and  had  known  that  story  of  Merlin's  birth — the  Nativity  that 
was  to  rewrite  the  Galilean  story  in  letters  of  Hell,  and  give 
mankind  for  ever  to  be  the  thrall  of  the  fallen  angel  his  father ! 
And  now  the  babe  at  its  birth  was  snatched  away  to  the  waters 
of  baptism,  and  poor  Satan — alas! — obliged  to  cast  about  for 
some  new  plan  of  campaign;  which,  to  say  truth,  he  must  have 
found,  and  practised  with  some  success.  But  Rosalind  had  never 
read  this  story.  Had  she  done  so  she  might  have  felt,  as  we  do, 
that  the  tears  of  an  absolutely  blameless  mother  might  serve 
to  cleanse  the  inherited  sin  from  a  babe  unborn  as  surely  as  the 
sacramental  fount  itself. 

And  it  may  be  that  some  such  thought  had  woven  itself  into 
the  story  Fenwick's  imagination  framed  for  Rosalind  the  even- 
ing before — that  time  that  she  said  of  Sally,  "She  is  not  a  devil !" 
The  exact  truth,  the  ever-present  record  that  was  in  her  mind 
as  she  said  this,  must  remain  unknown  to  us. 

But  to  return  to  her  as  she  is  now,  racked  by  a  twofold  mental 
fever,  an  apprehension  of  a  return  of  Fenwick's  memory,  and  a 
stimulated  recrudescence  of  her  own;  with  the  pain  of  all  the 
scars  burnt  in  twenty  years  ago  revived  now  by  her  talk  with  him 
of  a  few  hours  since.  She  could  bear  it  no  longer,  there  alone 
in  the  darkness  of  the  night.  She  must  get  at  Sally,  if  only  to 
look  at  her.  Why,  that  child  never  could  be  got  to  wake  unless 
shaken  when  she  was  wanted.  Ten  to  one  she  wouldn't  this  time. 
And  it  would  make  all  the  difference  just  to  see  her  there,  alive 
and  leagues  away  in  dreamland.  If  her  sleep  lasted  through 
the  crackle  of  a  match  to  light  her  candle,  heard  through  the 
open  door  between  their  rooms,  the  light  of  the  candle  itself 
wouldn't  wake  her.  Rosalind  remembered  as  she  lit  the  candle 
and  found  her  dressing-gown — for  the  night  air  struck  cold — 
how  once,  when  a  ten-year-old,  Sally  had  locked  herself  in,  and 
no  noise  or  knocking  would  rouse  her;  how  she  herself,  alarmed 
for  the  child,  had  thereon  summoned  help,  and  the  door  was 
broken  open,  but  only  to  be  greeted  by  the  sleeper,  after  ex- 
planation, with,  "Why  didn't  you  knock?" 


134  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

She  was  right  in  her  forecast,  and  perhaps  it  was  as  well  the 
girl  did  not  wake.  She  would  only  have  had  a  needless  fright, 
to  see  her  mother,  haggard  with  self -torment,  by  her  bedside 
at  that  hour.  So  Rosalind  got  her  full  look  at  the  rich  coils 
of  black  hair  that  framed  up  the  unconscious  face,  that  for  all 
its  unconsciousness  had  on  it  the  contentment  of  an  amused 
dreamer,  at  the  white  ivory  skin  it  set  off  so  well,  at  the  one 
visible  ear  that  heard  nothing,  or  if  it  did,  translated  it  into 
dream,  and  the  faint  rhythmic  movement  that  vouched  for  sound- 
less breath.  She  looked  as  long  as  she  dared,  then  moved  away. 
But  she  had  barely  got  her  head  back  on  her  pillow  when  "Was 
that  you,  mother?"  came  from  the  next  room.  Her  mother 
always  said  of  Sally  that  nothing  was  certain  but  the  imprevu, 
and  ascribed  to  her  a  monstrous  perversity.  It  was  this  that 
caused  her  to  sleep  profoundly  through  that  most  awakening 
of  incidents,  a  person  determined  not  to  disturb  you,  and  then 
to  wake  up  short  into  that  person's  self-congratulations  on 
success. 

"Of  course  it  was,  darling.  Who  else  could  it  have 
been?" 

Sally's  reply,  "I  thought  it  was,"  seems  less  reasonable — mere 
conversation  making — and  a  sequel  as  of  one  reviewing  new 
and  more  comfortable  positions  in  bed  follows  naturally.  A 
decision  on  the  point  does  not  prohibit  conversation,  rather 
facilitates  it. 

"What  did  you  come  for,  mammy  ?" 

"Eau-de-Cologne."  The  voice  has  a  fell  intention  of  instant 
sleep  in  it  which  Sally  takes  no  notice  of. 

"Have  you  got  it?" 

"Got  it?    Yes.    Go  to  sleep,  chatterbox." 

It  was  true  about  the  eau-de-Cologne,  for  Rosalind,  with  a 
self-acting  instinct  that  explanation  might  be  called  for,  had 
picked  up  the  bottle  on  her  return  journey.  You  see,  she  was 
always  practising  wicked  deceits  and  falsehoods,  all  to  save 
that  little  chit  being  made  miserable  on  her  account.  But  the 
chit  wasn't  going  to  sleep  again.  She  was  going  to  enjoy  her 
new  attitude  awake.  Who  woke  her  up?  Answer  that. 

"I  say,  mother!" 

"What,  kitten  ?    Go  to  sleep." 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  135 

"All  right — in  a  minute.  Do  you  remember  Mr.  Fenwick's 
bottle  of  eau-de-Cologne?" 

"Of  course  I  do.    Go  to  sleep." 

"Just  going.     But  wasn't  it  funny?" 

"What  funny?— Oh,  the  eau-de-Cologne!" 

Rosalind  isn't  really  sleepy,  and  may  as  well  talk.  "Yes, 
that  was  very  funny.  I  wonder  where  he  got  it."  She  seems 
roused,  and  her  daughter  is  repentant. 

"Oh  dear!  What  a  shame!  I've  just  spoiled  your  go-off. 
Poor  mother!" 

"Never  mind,  chick!  I  like  to  talk  a  little.  It  was  funny 
that  he  should  have  a  big  bottle  of  eau-de-Cologne,  of  all  things, 
in  his  pocket." 

"Yes,  but  it  was  rummer  still  about  Rosalind  Nightingale — 
his  Rosalind  Nightingale,  the  one  he  knew."  This  is  dangerous 
ground,  and  Rosalind  knows  it.  But  a  plea  of  half-sleep  will 
cover  mistakes,  and  conversation  about  the  pre-electrocution 
period  is  the  nearest  approach  to  taking  Sally  into  her  confidence 
that  she  can  hope  for.  She  is  so  weary  with  her  hours  of  wake- 
fulness  that  she  becomes  a  little  reckless,  foreseeing  a  resource 
in  such  uncertainty  of  speech  as  may  easily  be  ascribed  to  a 
premature  dream. 

"It's  not  impossible  that  it  should  have  been  your  grand- 
mother, kitten.  But  we  can't  find  out  now.  And  it  wouldn't  do 
us  any  good  that  I  can  see." 

"It  would  be  nice  to  know  for  curiosity.  Couldn't  any- 
thing be  fished  out  in  the  granny  connexion?  No  docu- 
ments?" 

"Nothing  will  ever  be  fished  out  by  me  in  that  connexion, 
Sally  darling."  Sally  knows  from  her  mother's  tone  of  voice 
that  they  are  approaching  an  impasse.  She  means  to  give  up 
the  point  the  moment  it  comes  fully  in  view.  But  she  will  go 
on  until  that  happens.  She  has  to  think  out  what  was  the  name 
of  the  Sub-Dean  before  she  speaks  again. 

"Didn't  the  Reverend  Decimus  Ireson  grab  all  the  belong- 
ings?" 

"They  were  left  to  him.  child.  It  was  all  fair,  as  far  as  that 
goes.  I  didn't  grudge  him  the  things — indeed,  I  felt  rather 
grateful  to  him  for  taking  them.  It  would  only  have  been  pain- 


136  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ful,  going  over  them.     Different  people  feel  differently  about 
these  things.    I  didn't  want  old  recollections." 

"Hadn't  the  Reverend  Decimus  a  swarm  of  brats?" 

"Sal — ly  darling!  .  .  .  Well,  yes,  he  had.  There  were  two 
families.  One  of  six  daughters,  I  forget  which." 

"Couldn't  they  be  got  at,  to  see  if  they  wouldn't  recollect 
something  ?" 

"Of  course  they  could.  They've  married  a  lawyer — at  least, 
one  of  them  has.  And  all  the  rest,  I  believe,  live  with  them." 
At  another  time  Sally  would  have  examined  this  case  in  relation 
to  the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  Bill.  She  was  too  interested  now 
to  stop  her  mother  continuing :  "But  what  a  silly  chick  you  are ! 
Why  should  they  know  anything  about  it?" 

"Why  shouldn't  they?" 

Her  mother's  reply  is  emphasized.  "My  dear,  do  consider! 
I  was  with  your  grandmother  till  within  a  month  of  her  mar- 
riage with  the  Eeverend,  as  you  call  him,  and  I  should  have 
been  ten  times  more  likely  to  hear  about  Mr.  Fenwick  than  ever 
they  would  afterwards.  Your  grandmother  had  never  even  seen 
them  when  I  went  away  to  India  to  be  married." 

"What's  the  lawyer's  name?" 

"Bearman,  I  think,  or  Dearman.  But  why? — Oh,  no,  by- 
the-bye,  I  think  it's  Beazley." 

^"Because  I  could  write  and  ask,  or  call.     Sure  to  hear  some- 
thing." 

"My  dear,  you'll  hear  nothing,  and  they'll  only  think  you 
mad."  Rosalind  was  beginning  to  feel  that  she  had  made  a 
mistake.  She  did  not  feel  so  sure  Sally  would  hear  nothing. 
A  recollection  crossed  her  mind  of  how  one  of  the  few  incidents 
there  was  time  for  in  her  short  married  life  had  been  the  writing 
of  a  letter  by  her  husband  to  his  friend,  the  real  Fenwick,  and  of 
much  chaff  therein  about  the  eldest  of  these  very  daughters, 
and  her  powerful  rivalry  to  Jessie  Nairn.  It  came  back  to  her 
now.  Sally  alarmed  her  still  further. 

"Yes,  mother.  I  shall  just  get  Mr.  Fenwick  to  hunt  up  the 
address,  and  go  and  call  on  the  Beazleys."  This  sudden  assump- 
tion of  a  concrete  form  by  the  family  was  due  to  a  vivid  image 
that  filled  Sally's  active  brain  immediately  of  a  household  of 
parched  women  presided  over  by  a  dried  man  who  owned  a  wig 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  137 

on  a  stand  and  knew  what  chaff-wax  meant,  which  she  didn't. 
A  shop  window  near  Lincoln's  Inn  was  responsible.  But  to 
Rosalind  it  really  seemed  that  Sally  must  have  had  other  means 
of  studying  this  family,  and  she  was  frightened. 

"You  don't  know  them,  kitten?" 

"Not  the  least.  Don't  want  to."  This  reflection  suggests 
caution.  "Perhaps  I'd  better  write.  .  .  ." 

"Better  do  nothing  of  the  sort,  child.    Better  go  to  sleep.  .  .  ." 

"All  right."  But  Sally  does  not  like  quitting  the  subject  so 
abruptly,  and  enlarges  on  it  a  little  more.  She  sketches  out  a 
letter  to  be  written  to  the  lady  who  is  at  present  a  buffer-state 
between  the  dried  man  and  the  parched  women.  "Dear  madam," 
she  recites,  "you  may  perhaps  recall — or  will  perhaps  recall — 
which  is  right,  mother?" 

"Either,  dear.  Go  to  sleep."  But  just  at  this  moment  Rosa- 
lind recollects  with  satisfaction  that  the  name  was  neither 
Beazley  nor  Dearman,  but  Tressilian  Tredgold.  She  has  been 
thinking  of  falling  back  on  affectation  of  sleep  to  avoid  more 
alarms,  but  this  makes  it  needless. 

"I'm  sure  I've  got  the  name  wrong,"  she  says,  with  revived 
wakefulness  in  her  voice. 

But  Sally  is  murmuring  to  herself — "Perhaps  recall  my 
mother,  Mrs.  Rosalind  Nightingale — Rosalind  in  brackets — by 
her  maiden  name  of — by  the  same  name — who  married  the  late 
Mr.  Graythorpe  in  India — I  say,  mother.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  little  goose." 

"How  am  I  to  put  all  that?" 

"Go  to  sleep!  I  don't  think  you'll  find  that  family  very — 
coming.  My  impression  is  you  had  much  better  leave  it  alone. 
What  good  would  it  do  you  to  find  out  who  Mr.  Fenwick  was? 
And  perhaps  have  him  go  away  to  Australia !" 

"Why  Australia?" 

Oh  dear,  what  mistakes  Rosalind  did  make!  Why  on  earth 
need  she  name  the  place  she  knew  Gerry  did  go  to?  America 
would  have  done  just  as  well. 

"Australia — New  Zealand — America — anywhere!"  But  Sally 
doesn't  mind — has  fallen  back  on  her  letter-sketch. 

"Apologizing  for  troubling  you,  believe  me,  dear  madam, 
yours  faithfully — or  very  faithfully,  or  truly — Rosalind  Nightin- 


138  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

gale.  ...  No;  I  should  not  like  Mr.  Fenwick  to  go  away  any- 
where. No  more  would  you.  I  want  him  here,  for  us.  So  do 
you!" 

"I  should  be  very  sorry  indeed  for  Mr.  Fenwick  to  go  away. 
We  should  miss  him  badly.  But  fancy  what  his  wife  must  be 
feeling,  if  he  has  one.  I  can  sympathize  with  her."  It  really 
was  a  relief  to  say  anything  so  intensely  true. 

Did  the  reality  with  which  she  spoke  impress  Sally  more  than 
the  mere  words,  which  were  no  more  than  "common  form"  of 
conversation?  Probably,  for  something  in  them  brought  back 
her  conference  with  the  Major  on  Boxing  Day  morning  when  her 
mother  was  at  church.  What  was  that  she  had  said  to  him 
when  she  was  sitting  on  his  knee  improving  his  whiskers? — 
that  if  she,  later  on,  saw  reason  to  suppose  his  suspicions  true, 
she  would  ask  her  mother  point-blank.  Why  not?  And  here 
she  was  with  the  same  suspicions,  quite,  quite  independent  of 
the  Major.  And  see  how  dark  it  was  in  both  rooms !  One  could 
say  anything.  Besides,  if  her  mother  didn't  want  to  answer,  she 
could  pretend  to  be  asleep.  She  wouldn't  ask  too  loud,  to  give 
her  a  chance. 

"Mother  darling,  if  Mr.  Fenwick  was  to  make  you  an  offer, 
how  should  you  like  it  ?" 

"Oh  dear!  What's  the  child  saying?  What  is  it,  Sallykin? 
I  was  just  going  off." 

Now,  obviously,  you  can  ask  a  lady  Sally's  question  in  the 
easy  course  of  flowing  chat,  but  you  can't  drag  her  from  the 
golden  gates  of  sleep  to  ask  it.  It  gets  too  official.  So  Sally 
backed  out,  and  said  she  had  said  nothing,  which  wasn't  the 
case.  The  excessive  readiness  with  which  her  mother  accepted 
the  statement  looks,  to  us,  as  if  she  had  really  been  awake  and 
heard. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

HOW  MILLAIS'  "HUGUENOT"  CAME  OF  A  WALK  IN  THE  BACK  GARDEN. 
AND  HOW  FEN  WICK  VERY  NEARLY  KISSED  SALLY 

IN  spite  of  Colonel  Lund's  having  been  so  betimes  in  his  fore- 
castings  about  Mrs.  Nightingale  and  Fenwick  (as  we  must  go  on 
calling  him  for  the  present),  still,  when  one  day  that  lady  came, 
about  six  weeks  after  the  nocturne  in  our  last  chapter,  and  told 
him  she  must  have  his  consent  to  a  step  she  was  contemplating 
before  she  took  it,  he  felt  a  little  shock  in  his  heart — one  of 
those  shocks  one  so  often  feels  when  one  hears  that  a  thing  he 
has  anticipated  without  pain,  even  with  pleasure,  is  to  become 
actual. 

But  he  replied  at  once,  "My  dear!  Of  course!"  without  hear- 
ing any  particulars;  and  added:  "You  will  be  happier,  I  am  sure. 
Why  should  I  refuse  my  consent  to  your  marrying  Fenwick? 
Because  that's  it,  I  suppose?"  That  was  it.  The  Major  had 
guessed  right. 

"He  asked  me  to  marry  him,  last  night,"  she  said,  with  simple 
equanimity  and  directness.  "I  told  him  yes,  as  far  as  my  own 
wishes  went.  But  I  said  I  wouldn't,  if  either  you  or  the  kitten 
forbade  the  banns." 

"I  don't  think  we  shall,  either  of  us."  It  was  a  daughter's 
marriage- warrant  he  was  being  asked  to  sign;  a  document  seldom 
signed  without  a  heartache,  more  or  less,  for  him  who  holds  the 
pen.  But  his  cceur  navre  had  to  be  concealed,  for  the  sake  of 
the  applicant;  no  wet  blanket  should  be  cast  on  her  new  happi- 
ness. He  kissed  her  affectionately.  To  him,  for  all  her  thirty- 
nine  or  forty  birthdays,  she  was  still  the  young  girl  he  had 
helped  and  shielded  in  her  despair,  twenty  years  ago,  he  himself 
being  then  a  widower,  near  forty  years  her  senior.  "No,  Rosa 
dear,"  continued  the  Major.  "As  far  as  I  can  see,  there  can  be 
no  objection  but  one — you  know!" 

"The  one?" 

139 


140  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Yes.  It  is  all  a  terra  incognita.  He  may  have  a  wife  else- 
where, seeking  for  him.  Who  can  tell?" 

"It  is  a  risk  to  be  run.  But  I  am  prepared  to  run  it" — she 
was  going  to  add  "for  his  sake,"  but  remembered  that  her  real 
meaning  for  these  words  would  be,  "for  the  sake  of  the  man  I 
wronged,"  and  that  the  Major  knew  nothing  of  Fenwick's  iden- 
tity. She  had  not  been  able  to  persuade  herself  to  make  even  her 
old  friend  her  confidant.  Danger  lay  that  way.  She  knew 
silence  would  be  safe  against  anything  but  Fenwick's  own 
memory. 

"Yes,  it  is  a  risk,  no  doubt,"  the  Major  said.  "But  I  am  like 
him.  I  cannot  conceive  a  man  forgetting  that  he  had  a  wife. 
It  seems  an  impossibility.  He  has  talked  about  you  to  me,  you 
know." 

"In  connexion  with  his  intention  about  me?" 

"Almost.  Not  quite  definitely,  but  almost.  He  knew  I  un- 
derstood what  he  meant.  It  seemed  to  me  he  was  fidgeting  more 
about  his  having  so  little  to  offer  in  the  way  of  worldly  goods  than 
about  any  possible  wife  in  the  clouds." 

"Dear  fellow!  Just  fancy!  Why,  those  people  in  the  City 
would  take  him  into  partnership  to-morrow  if  he  had  a  little 
capital  to  bring  in.  .They  told  him  so  themselves." 

"And  you  would  finance  him?  Is  that  the  idea?  Well,  I  sup- 
pose as  I'm  your  trustee,  if  the  money  was  all  lost,  I  should  have 
to  make  it  up,  so  it  wouldn't  matter." 

"Oh,  Major  dear!  is  that  what  being  a  trustee  means?" 

"Of  course,  my  dear  Rosa!     What  did  you  think  it  meant?" 

"Do  you  know,  I  don't  know  what  I  did  think;  at  least,  I 
thought  it  would  be  very  nice  if  you  were  my  trustee." 

The  conversation  has  gone  off  on  a  siding,  but  the  Major  shunts 
the  train  back.  "That  was  what  you  and  little  fiddle-stick's-end 
were  talking  about  till  three  in  the  morning,  then  ?" 

"Oh,  Major  dear,  did  you  hear  us?  And  we  kept  you  awake? 
What  a  shame!" 

/ 

For  on  the  previous  evening,  Sally  being  out  musicking  and 
expected  home  late,  Fenwick  and  Mrs.  Nightingale  had  gone  out 
in  the  back-garden  to  enjoy  the  sweet  air  of  that  rare  phenom- 
enon— a  really  fine  spring  night  in  England — leaving  the  Major 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  141 

indoors  because  of  his  bronchial  tubes.  The  late  seventies  shrink 
from  night  air,  even  when  one  means  to  be  a  healthy  octogena- 
rian. Also,  they  go  away  to  bed,  secretively,  when  no  one  is 
looking — at  least,  the  Major  did  in  this  case.  Of  course,  he  was 
staying  the  night,  as  usual. 

So,  in  the  interim  between  the  Major's  good-night  and  Sally's 
cab-wheels,  this  elderly  couple  of  lovers  (as  they  would  have 
worded  their  own  description)  had  the  summer  night  to  them- 
selves. As  the  Major  closed  his  bedroom  window,  he  saw,  before 
drawing  down  the  blind,  that  the  two  were  walking  slowly  up 
and  down  the  gravel  path,  talking  earnestly.  No  impression  of 
mature  years  came  to  the  Major  from  that  gravel  path.  A  well- 
made,  handsome  man,  with  a  bush  of  brown  hair  and  a  Ealeigh 
beard,  and  a  graceful  woman  suggesting  her  beauty  through 
the  clear  moonlight — that  was  the  implication  of  as  much  as  he 
could  see,  as  he  drew  the  inference  a  word  of  soliloquy  hinted 
at,  "Not  Millais'  Huguenot,  so  far!"  But  he  evidently  expected 
that  grouping  very  soon.  Only  he  was  too  sleepy  to  watch  for 
it,  and  went  to  bed.  Besides,  would  it  have  been  honourable? 

"It's  no  use,  Fenwick,"  she  said  to  him  in  the  garden,  "trying 
to  keep  off  the  forbidden  subject,  so  I  won't  try." 

"It's  not  forbidden  by  me.  Nothing  could  be,  that  you  would 
like  to  say." 

Was  that,  she  thought,  only  what  so  many  men  say  every  day 
to  so  many  women,  and  mean  so  little  by?  Or  was  it  more? 
She  could  not  be  sure  yet.  She  glanced  at  him  as  they  turned  at 
the  path-end,  and  her  misgivings  all  but  vanished,  so  serious  and 
resolved  was  his  quiet  face  in  the  moonlight.  She  was  half- 
minded  to  say  to  him,  "Do  you  mean  that  you  love  me,  Fenwick?" 
But,  then,  was  it  safe  to  presume  on  the  peculiarity  of  her  posi- 
tion, of  which  he,  remember,  knew  absolutely  nothing. 

For  with  her  it  was  not  as  with  another  woman,  who  expects 
what  is  briefly  called  "an  offer."  In  her  case,  the  man  beside 
her  was  her  husband,  to  whose  exorcism  of  her  love  from  his  life 
her  heart  had  never  assented.  While,  in  his  eyes,  she  differed  in 
no  way  in  her  relation  to  him  from  any  woman,  to  whom  a  man, 
placed  as  he  was,  longs  to  say  that  she  is  what  he  wants  most  of 
all  mortal  things,  but  stickles  in  the  telling  of  it,  from  sheer 
cowardice;  who  dares  not  risk  the  loss  of  what  share  he  has  in 


142  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

her  in  the  attempt  to  get  the  whole.  She  grasped  the  whole 
position,  he  only  part  of  it. 

"I  am  glad  it  is  so,"  she  decided  to  say.  "Because  each  time 
I  see  you,  I  want  to  ask  if  nothing  has  come  back — no  trace  of 
memory?" 

"Nothing!     It  is  all  gone.     Nothing  comes  back." 

"Do  you  remember  that  about  the  tennis-court?  Did  it  go  any 
further,  or  die  out  completely?" 

He  stopped  a  moment  in  his  walk,  and  flicked  the  ash  from  his 
cigar;  then,  after  a  moment's  thought,  replied: 

"I  am  not  sure.  It  seemed  to  get  mixed  with  my  name— on 
my  arm.  I  think  it  was  only  because  tennis  and  Fenwick  are  a 
little  alike."  His  companion  thought  how  near  the  edge  of  a 
volcano  both  were,  and  resolved  to  try  a  crucial  experiment. 
Better  an  eruption,  after  all,  or  a  plunge  in  the  crater,  than  a  life 
of  incessant  doubt. 

"You  remembered  the  name  Algernon  clearly?" 

"Not  clearly.  But  it  was  the  only  name  with  an  'A'  that  felt 
right.  Unless  it  was  Arthur,  but  I'm  sure  my  name  never  was 
Arthur!" 

"Sally  thought  it  was  hypnotic  suggestion — thought  I  had  laid 
an  unfair  stress  upon  it.  I  easily  might  have." 

"Why?     Did  you  know  an  Algernon?" 

"My  husband's  name  was  Algernon."  She  herself  wondered 
how  any  voice  that  spoke  so  near  a  heart  that  beat  as  hers  did 
at  this  moment  could  keep  its  secret.  Yet  it  betrayed  nothing, 
and  so  supreme  was  her  self-control  that  she  could  say  to  herself, 
even  while  she  knew  she  would  pay  for  this  effort  later,  that  the 
pallor  of  her  face  would  betray  nothing  either;  he  would  put 
that  down  to  the  moonlight.  She  was  a  strong  woman.  For 
she  went  steadily  on,  to  convince  herself  of  her  own  self-com- 
mand: "I  knew  him  very  little  by  that  name,  though.  I  always 
called  him  Gerry." 

He  merely  repeated  the  name  thrice,  but  it  gave  her  a  moment 
of  keen  apprehension.  Any  stirring  of  memory  over  it  might  be 
the  thin  end  of  a  very  big  wedge.  But  if  there  was  any,  it  was 
an  end  so  thin  that  it  broke  off.  Fenwick  looked  round  at  her. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  said,  "I  rather  favour  the  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion theory.  For  the  moment  you  said  the  name  Gerry,  I  fancied 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  143 

I  too  knew  it  as  the  short  for  Algernon.  Now,  that's  absurd! 
No  two  people  ever  made  Gerry  out  of  Algernon.  It's  always 
Algy." 

"Always.     Certainly,  it  would  be  odd." 

"I  am  rather  inclined  to  think,"  said  Fenwick,  after  a  short 
silence,  "that  I  can  understand  how  it  happened.  Only  then, 
perhaps,  my  name  may  not  be  Algernon  at  all.  And  here  I  have 
been  using  it,  signing  with  it,  and  BO  on." 

"What  do  you  understand?" 

"Well,  I  suspect  this.  I  suspect  that  you  did  lay  some  kind  of 
stress,  naturally,  on  your  husband's  name,  and  also  on  its  ab- 
breviation. It  affected  me  somehow  with  a  sense  of  familiarity." 

"Is  it  so  very  improbable  that  you  were  familiar  with  the  name 
Gerry  too?  It  might  be " 

"Anything  might  be.  But  surely  we  almost  know  that  two 
accidental  adoptions  of  Gerry  as  a  short  for  Algernon  would  not 
come  across  each  other  by  chance,  as  yours  and  mine  have  done." 

"What  is  'almost  knowing*?  But  tell  me  this.  When  I  call 
you  Gerry — Gerry  .  .  .  there! — does  the  association  or  impres- 
sion repeat  itself?"  She  repeated  the  name  once  and  again,  to 
try.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  nettle-grasping  in  all  this.  Also 
a  wish  to  clinch  matters,  to  drive  the  sword  to  the  hilt;  to  put  an 
end,  once  and  for  all,  to  the  state  of  tension  she  lived  in.  For 
surely,  if  anything  could  prove  his  memory  was  really  gone,  it 
would  be  this.  That  she  should  call  him  by  his  name  of  twenty 
years  ago — should  utter  it  to  him,  as  she  could  not  help  doing, 
in  the  tone  in  which  she  spoke  to  him  then,  and  that  her  doing  so 
should  arouse  no  memory  of  the  past — surely  this  would  show,  if 
anything  could  show  it,  that  that  past  had  been  finally  erased 
from  the  scroll  of  his  life.  She  had  a  moment  only  of  suspense 
after  speaking,  and  then,  as  his  voice  came  in  answer,  she  breathed 
again  freely.  Nothing  could  have  shown  a  more  complete  uncon- 
sciousness than  his  reply,  after  another  moment  of  reflection: 

"Do  you  know,  Mrs.  Nightingale,  that  convinces  me  that  the 
name  Algernon  was  produced  by  your  way  of  saying  it.  It  was 
hypnotic  suggestion!  I  assure  you  that,  however  strange  you 
may  think  it,  every  time  you  repeat  the  name  Gerry,  it  seems 
more  familiar  to  me.  If  you  said  it  often  enough,  I  have  no 
doubt  I  should  soon  be  believing  in  the  diminutive  as  devoutly 


144  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

as  I  believe  in  the  name  itself.  Because  I  am  quite  convinced  of 
Algernon  Fenwick.  Continually  signing  per-pro's  has  driven  it 
home/'  He  didn't  seem  quite  in  earnest  over  his  conviction, 
though — seemed  to  laugh  a  little  about  it. 

But  a  sadder  tone  came  into  his  voice  after  an  interval  in 
which  his  companion,  frightened  at  her  own  temerity,  resolved 
that  she  would  not  call  him  Gerry  again.  It  was  sailing  too  near 
the  wind.  She  was  glad  he  went  back  from  this  side-channel  of 
their  talk  to  the  main  subject. 

"No,  I  have  no  hope  of  getting  to  the  past  through  my  own 
mind.  I  feel  it  is  silence.  And  that  being  so,  I  should  be  sorry 
that  any  illumination  should  come  to  me  out  of  the  past,  throw- 
ing light  on  records  my  mind  could  not  read — I  mean,  any  proof 
positive  of  what  my  crippled  memory  could  not  confirm.  I  would 
rather  remain  quite  in  the  dark — unless,  indeed " 

"Unless  what?" 

"Unless  the  well-being  of  some  others,  forgotten  with  my 
forgotten  world,  is  involved  in — dependent  on — my  return  to  it. 
That  would  be  shocking — the  hungry  nestlings  in  the  deserted 
nest.  But  I  am  so  convinced  that  I  have  only  forgotten  a  restless 
life  of  rapid  change — that  I  could  not  forget  love  and  home,  if 
I  ever  had  them — that  my  misgivings  about  this  are  misgivings 
of  the  reason  only,  not  of  the  heart.  Do  you  understand  me?" 

"Perfectly.     At  least,  I  think  so.     Go  on." 

"I  cannot  help  thinking,  too,  that  a  sense  of  a  strong  link 
with  a  forgotten  yesterday  would  survive  the  complete  efface- 
ment  of  all  its  details  in  the  form  of  a  wish  to  return  to  it.  I 
have  none.  My  to-day  is  too  happy  for  me  to  wish  to  go  back 
to  that  yesterday,  even  if  I  could,  without  a  wrench.  I  feel  a 
sort  of  shame  in  saying  I  should  be  sorry  to  return  to  it.  It 
seems  a  sort  of  ...  a  sort  of  disloyalty  to  the  unknown." 

"You  might  long  to  be  back,  if  you  could  know.  Think  if  you 
could  see  before  you  now,  and  recognise  the  woman  who  was  once 
your  wife."  There  was  nettle-grasping  in  this. 

"It  is  a  mere  abstract  idea,"  he  replied,  "unaccompanied  by 
any  image  of  an  individual.  I  perceive  that  it  is  dutiful  to  recog- 
nise the  fact  that  I  should  welcome  her  if  she  appeared  as  a 
reality.  But  it  is  a  large  if.  I  am  content  to  go  on  without  an 
hypothesis — that  is  really  all  she  is  now.  And  my  belief  that, 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  145 

if  she  had  ever  existed,  I  should  not  be  able  to  disbelieve  in  her, 
underlies  my  acceptance  of  her  in  that  character/' 

Mrs.  Nightingale  laughed.  "We  are  mighty  metaphysical," 
said  she.  "Wouldn't  it  depend  entirely  on  what  she  was  like, 
when  all's  said  and  done?  I  believe  I'm  right.  We  women  are 
more  practical  than  men,  after  all." 

"You  make  game  of  my  metaphysics,  as  you  call  them.  Well, 
I'll  drop  the  metaphysics  and  speak  the  honest  truth."  He 
stopped  and  faced  round  towards  her,  standing  on  the  garden 
path.  "Only,  you  must  make  me  one  promise." 

She  stopped  also,  and  stood  looking  full  at  him. 

"What  promise?" 

"If  I  tell  you  all  I  think  in  my  heart,  you  will  not  allow  it  to 
come  between  me  and  you,  to  undermine  the  only  strong  friend- 
ship I  have  in  the  world,  the  only  one  I  know  of." 

"It  shall  make  no  difference  between  us.     You  may  trust  me." 

They  turned  and  walked  again  slowly,  once  up  and  down. 
Then  Fenwick's  voice,  when  he  next  spoke,  had  an  added  earnest- 
ness, a  growing  tension,  with  an  echo  in  it,  for  her,  of  the  years 
gone  by — a  ring  of  his  young  enthusiasm,  of  his  passionate  out- 
burst in  the  lawn-tennis  garden  twenty  years  ago.  He  made  no 
more  ado  of  what  he  had  to  say. 

"I  can  form  no  image  in  my  mind,  try  how  I  may,  of  any 
woman  for  whose  sake  I  would  give  up  one  hour  of  the  precious 
privilege  I  now  enjoy.  I  have  no  right  to — to  assess  it,  to  make 
a  definition  of  it.  But  I  have  it  now.  I  could  not  resume  my 
place  as  the  husband  of  a  now  unknown  wife — you  know  what  I 
mean — and  not  lose  the  privilege  of  being  near  you.  It  may 
be — it  is  conceivable,  I  mean;  no  more — that  a  revelation  to 
me  of  myself,  a  light  thrown  on  what  I  am,  would  bring  me 
what  would  palliate  the  wrench  of  losing  what  I  have  of  you. 
It  may  be  so — it  may  be!  All  I  know  is — all  I  can  say  is — that 
I  can  now  imagine  nothing,  no  treasure  of  love  of  wife  or  daugh- 
ter, that  would  be  a  make-weight  for  what  I  should  lose  if  I  had 
to  part  from  you."  He  paused  a  moment,  as  though  he  thought 
he  was  going  beyond  his  rights  of  speech,  then  added  more 
quietly:  "No;  I  can  imagine  no  hypothetical  wife.  And  as  for 
my  hypothetical  daughter,  I  find  I  am  always  utilising  Sally  for 
her." 


146  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Mrs.  Nightingale  murmured  in  an  undertone  the  word  "Sally- 
kin,"  as  she  so  often  did  when  her  daughter  was  mentioned,  with 
that  sort  of  caress  in  her  voice.  This  time  it  was  caught  by  a 
sort  of  gasp,  and  she  remained  silent.  What  Sally  was  had 
crossed  her  mind — the  strange  relation  in  which  she  stood  to 
Fenwick,  born  in  his  wedlock,  but  no  daughter  of  his.  And  there 
he  was,  as  fond  of  the  child  as  he  could  be. 

Fenwick  may  have  half  misunderstood  something  in  her  man- 
ner, for  when  he  spoke  again  his  words  had  a  certain  aspect  of 
recoil  from  what  he  had  said,  at  least  of  consideration  of  it  in 
some  new  light. 

"When  I  speak  to  you  as  freely  as  this,  remember  the  nature 
of  the  claim  I  have  to  do  so — the  only  apology  I  can  make  for 
taking  an  exceptional  licence." 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

"I  mean  I  do  not  count  myself  as  a  man — only  a  sort  of 
inexplicable  waif,  a  kind  of  cancelled  man.  A  man  without  a 
past  is  like  a  child,  or  an  idiot  from  birth,  suddenly  endowed 
with  faculties." 

"What  nonsense,  Fenwick!  You  have  brooded  and  specu- 
lated over  your  condition  until  you  have  become  morbid.  Do 
now,  as  Sally  would  say,  chuck  the  metaphysics." 

"Perhaps  I  was  getting  too  sententious  over  it.  I'm  sorry,  and 
please  I  won't  do  so  any  more." 

"Don't  then.  And  now  you'll  see  what  will  happen.  You 
will  remember  everything  quite  suddenly.  It  will  all  come  back 
in  a  flash,  and  oh,  how  glad  you  will  be!  And  think  of  the  joy 
of  your  wife  and  children!" 

"Yes,  and  suppose  all  the  while  I  am  hating  them  for  dragging 
me  away  from  you " 

"From  me  and  Sally?" 

"I  wasn't  going  to  say  Sally,  but  I  don't  want  to  keep  her 
out.  You  and  Sally,  if  you  like.  All  I  know  is,  if  their  re- 
appearance were  to  bring  with  it  a  pleasure  I  cannot  imagine — 
because  I  cannot  imagine  them — it  would  cut  across  my  life,  as 
it  is  now,  in  a  way  that  would  drive  me  mad.  Indeed  it  would. 
How  could  I  say  to  myself — as  I  say  now,  as  I  dare  to  say  to  you, 
knowing  what  I  am — that  to  be  here  with  you  now  is  the  greatest 
happiness  of  which  I  am  capable." 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  147 

"All  that  would  change  if  you  recovered  them." 

"Yes — yes — maybe!  But  I  shrink  from  it;  I  shrink  from 
them!  They  are  strangers — nonentities.  You  are — you  are — 
oh,  it's  no  use "  He  stopped  suddenly. 

"What  am  I?" 

"It's  no  use  beating  about  the  bush.  You  are  the  centre  of 
my  life  as  it  is,  you  are  what  I — all  that  is  left  of  me — love  best 
in  the  world!  I  cannot  now  conceive  the  possibility  of  anything 
but  hatred  for  what  might  come  between  us,  for  what  might 
sever  the  existing  link,  whatever  it  may  be — I  care  little  what  it 
is  called,  so  long  as  I  may  keep  it  unbroken.  .  .  ." 

"And  I  care  nothing!"  It  w.as  her  eyes  meeting  his  that 
stopped  him.  He  could  read  the  meaning  of  her  words  in  them 
before  they  were  spoken.  Then  he  replied  in  a  voice  less  firm 
than  before: 

"Dare  we — knowing  what  I  am,  knowing  what  may  come 
suddenly,  any  hour  of  the  day,  out  of  the  unknown — dare  we 
call  it  love?"  Perhaps  in  Fenwick's  mind  at  this  moment  the 
predominant  feeling  was  terror  of  the  consequences  to  her  that 
marriage  with  him  might  betray  her  into.  It  was  much  stronger 
than  any  misgiving  (although  a  little  remained)  of  her  feelings 
toward  himself. 

"What  else  can  we  call  it?  It  is  a  good  old  word."  She  said 
this  quite  calmly,  with  a  very  happy  face  one  could  see  the  flush 
of  pleasure  and  success  on  even  in  the  moonlight,  and  there  was 
no  reluctance,  no  shrinking  in  her,  from  her  share  of  the  out- 
come the  Major  had  not  waited  to  see.  "Millais'  Huguenot"  was 
complete.  Rosalind  Graythorpe,  or  Palliser,  stood  there  again 
with  her  husband's  arm  round  her — her  husband  of  twenty  years 
ago!  And  in  that  fact  was  the  keynote  of  what  there  was  of 
unusual — of  unconventional,  one  might  almost  phrase  it — in  her 
way  of  receiving  and  requiting  his  declaration.  It  hardly  need 
be  said  that  he  was  unconscious  of  any  such  thing.  A  man  whose 
soul  is  reeling  with  the  intoxication  of  a  new-found  happiness  is 
not  overcritical  about  the  exact  movement  of  the  hand  that  has 
put  the  cup  to  his  lips. 

The  Huguenot  arrangement  might  have  gone  on  in  the  undis- 
turbed moonlight  till  the  chill  of  the  morning  came  to  break  it 
up  if  a  cab- wheel  crescendo  and  a  strepitoso  peal  at  the  bell  had 


148  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

not  announced  Sally,  who  burst  into  the  house  and  rushed  into 
the  drawing-room  tumultuously,  to  be  corrected  back  by  a  serious 
word  from  Ann,  the  door-opener,  that  Missis  and  Mr.  Fenwick 
had  stepped  out  in  the  garden.  Ann's  parade  of  her  conviction 
that  this  was  en  regie,  when  no  one  said  it  wasn't,  was  suggestive 
in  the  highest  degree.  Professional  perjury  in  a  law-court  could 
not  have  been  more  self-conscious.  Probably  Ann  knew  all  about 
it,  as  well  as  cook.  Sally  saw  nothing.  She  was  too  full  of  great 
events  at  Ladbroke  Grove  Eoad — the  sort  of  events  that  are 
announced  with  a  preliminary,  What  do  you  think,  N  or  M? 
And  then  develop  the  engagement  of  0  to  P,  or  the  jilting  of  Q 
byE. 

There  was  just  time  for  a  dozen  words  between  the  com- 
ponents of  the  Millais  group  in  the  moonlight. 

"Shall  we  tell  Sally?"  It  was  the  Huguenot  that  asked  the 
question. 

"Not  just  this  minute.  Wait  till  I  can  think.  Perhaps  I'll 
tell  her  upstairs.  Now  say  good-bye  before  the  chick  comes,  and 
go."  And  the  chick  came  on  the  scene  just  too  late  to  criticise 
the  pose. 

"I  say,  mother !"  this  with  the  greatest  empressement  of  which 
humanity  and  youth  are  capable.  "I've  got  something  I  must 
tell  you!" 

"What  is  it,  kitten?" 

"Tishy's  head-over-ears  in  love  with  the  shop-boy!" 

"Sh-sh-sh-shish!  You  noisy  little  monkey,  do  consider!  The 
neighbours  will  hear  every  word  you  say."  So  they  will,  prob- 
ably, as  Miss  Sally's  voice  is  very  penetrating,  and  rings  musically 
clear  in  the  summer  night.  Her  attitude  is  that  she  doesn't  care 
if  they  do. 

"Besides  they're  only  cats!  And  nobody  knows  who  Tishy  is, 
or  the  shop-boy.  I'll  come  down  and  tell  you  all  about  it." 

"We're  coming  up,  darling!"  You  see,  Sally  had  manifestoed 
down  into  the  garden  from  the  landing  of  the  stair,  which  was 
made  of  iron  openwork  you  knocked  flower-pots  down  and  broke, 
and  you  have  had  to  have  a  new  one — that,  at  least,  is  how  Ann 
put  it.  On  the  stair-top  Mrs.  Nightingale  stems  the  torrent  of 
her  daughter's  revelation  because  it's  so  late  and  Mr.  Fenwick 
must  get  away. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  149 

"You  must  tell  him  all  about  it  another  time/' 

"I  don't  know  whether  it's  any  concern  of  his." 

"Taken  scrupulous,  are  we,  all  of  a  sudden?"  says  Fenwick, 
laughing.  "That  cock  won't  fight,  Miss  Pussy!  You'll  have  to 
tell  me  all  about  it  when  I  come  to-morrow.  Good-night,  Mrs. 
Nightingale."  A  sort  of  humorous  formality  in  his  voice  makes 
Sally  look  from  one  to  the  other,  but  it  leads  to  nothing.  Sally 
goes  to  see  Fenwick  depart,  and  her  mother  goes  upstairs  with 
a  candle.  In  a  minute  or  so  Sally  pelts  up  the  stairs,  leaving 
Ann  and  the  cook  to  thumbscrew  on  the  shutter-panels  of  the 
street  door,  and  make  sure  that  housebreaker-baffling  bells  are 
susceptible. 

"Do  you  know,  mamma,  I  really  did  think — what  do  you 
think  I  thought?" 

"What,  darling?" 

"I  thought  Mr.  Fenwick  was  going  to  kiss  me !"  In  fact,  Fen- 
wick had  only  just  remembered  in  time  that  family  privileges 
must  stand  over  till  after  the  revelation. 

"Should  you  have  minded  if  he  had?" 

"Not  a  bit!  Why  should  anybody  mind  Mr.  Fenwick  kissing 
them?  You  wouldn't  yourself — you  know  you  wouldn't !  Come 
now,  mother!" 

"I  shouldn't  distress  myself,  poppet!"  But  words  are  mere 
wind;  the  manner  of  them  is  everything,  and  the  foreground  of 
her  mother's  manner  suggests  a  background  to  Sally.  She  has 
smelt  a  rat,  and  suddenly  fixes  her  eyes  on  a  tell-tale  countenance 
fraught  with  mysterious  reserves. 

"Mother,  you  are  going  to  marry  Mr.  Fenwick!"  No  change 
of  type  could  do  justice  to  the  emphasis  with  which  Sally  goes 
straight  to  the  point.  Italics  throughout  would  be  weak.  Her 
mother  smiles  as  she  fondles  her  daughter's  excited  face. 

"I  am,  darling.  So  you  may  kiss  him  yourself  when  he  comes 
to-morrow  evening." 

And  Tishy's  passion  for  the  shop-boy  had  to  stand  over.  But, 
as  the  Major  had  said,  the  mother  and  daughter  talked  till  three 
in  the  morning — well,  past  two,  anyhow ! 


CHAPTER  XV 

CONCERNING  DR.  VEREKER  AND  HIS  MAMMA,  WHO  HAD  KNOWN  IT  ALL 
ALONG.  HOW  SALLY  LUNCHED  WITH  THE  SALES  WILSONS,  AND  GOT 
SPECULATING  ABOUT  HER  FATHER.  HOW  TISHY  LET  OUT  ABOUT 
MAJOR  ROPER.  HOW  THERE  WAS  A  WEDDING 

THE  segment  of  a  circle  of  Society  that  did  duty  for  a  sphere, 
in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Nightingale  and  Sally,  was  collectively  sur- 
prised when  it  heard  of  the  intended  marriage  of  the  former, 
having  settled  in  its  own  mind  that  the  latter  was  the  magnet 
to  Mr.  Fenwick's  lodestone.  But  each  several  individual  that 
composed  it  had,  it  seemed,  foreseen  exactly  what  was  going  to 
happen,  and  had  predicted  it  in  language  that  could  only  have 
been  wilfully  mistaken  by  persons  interested  in  proving  that  the 
speaker  was  not  a  prophet.  Exceptional  insight  had  been  epi- 
demic. The  only  wonder  was  (to  the  individual  speaker)  that 
Mrs.  Nightingale  had  remained  single  so  long,  and  the  only  other 
wonder  was  that  none  of  the  other  cases  had  seen  it.  They  had 
evidently  only  taken  seership  mildly. 

Dr.  Vereker  had  a  good  opportunity  of  studying  omniscience 
of  a  malignant  type  in  the  very  well  marked  case  of  his  own 
mother.  You  may  remember  Sally's  denunciation  of  her  as  an 
old  hen  that  came  wobbling  down  on  you.  When  her  son  (in  the 
simplicity  of  his  heart)  announced  to  her  as  a  great  and  curious 
piece  of  news  that  Mr.  Fenwick  was  going  to  marry  Mrs.  Nightin- 
gale, she  did  not  even  look  up  from  her  knitting  to  reply:  "What 
did  I  say  to  you,  Conny?"  For  his  name  was  Conrad,  as  Sally 
had  reported.  His  discretion  was  not  on  the  alert  on  this  oc- 
casion, for  he  incautiously  asked,  "When?" 

The  good  lady  laid  down  her  knitting  on  her  knees,  and  folded 
her  hands,  interlacing  her  fingers,  which  were  fat,  as  far  as  they 
would  go,  and  leaning  back  with  closed  eyes — eyes  intended  to 
remain  closed  during  anticipated  patience. 

"Fancy  asking  me  that!"  said  she. 

150 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  151 

"Well,  but— hang  it!— when?" 

"Do  not  use  profane  language,  Conrad,  in  your  mother's 
presence.  Can  you  really  ask  me,  'When?'  Try  and  recollect!" 

Conrad  appeared  to  consider;  but  as  he  had  to  contend  with 
the  problem  of  finding  out  when  a  thing  had  been  said,  the  only 
clue  to  the  nature  of  which  was  the  date  of  its  utterance,  it  was 
no  great  wonder  that  his  cogitations  ended  in  a  shake  of  the  head 
subdivided  into  its  elements — shakes  taken  a  brace  at  a  time — 
and  an  expression  of  face  as  of  one  who  whistles  sotto  voce.  His 
questioner  must  have  been  looking  between  her  eyelids,  which 
wasn't  playing  fair;  for  she  indicted  him  on  the  spot,  and  pushed 
him,  as  it  were,  into  the  dock. 

"That,  I  suppose,  means  that  I  speak  untruth.  Very  well,  my 
dear!"  Besignation  set  in. 

"Come,  mother,  I  say,  now!  Be  a  reasonable  maternal  parent. 
When  did  I  say  anybody  spoke  untruth?" 

"My  dear,  you  said  nothing.  But  if  your  father  could  have 
heard  what  you  did  not  say,  you  know  perfectly  well,  my  dear 
Conrad,  what  he  would  have  thought.  Was  he  likely  to  sit  by 
and  hear  me  insulted?  Did  he  ever  do  so?" 

The  doctor  was  writing  letters  at  a  desk-table  that  he  used  for 
miscellaneous  correspondence  as  much  as  possible,  in  order  that 
this  very  same  mother  of  his  should  be  left  alone  as  little  as 
possible.  He  ended  a  responsible  letter,  and  directed  it,  and 
made  it  a  thing  of  the  past  with  a  stamp  on  it  in  a  little  basket  on 
the  hall-table  outside.  Then  he  came  back  to  his  mother,  and 
bestowed  on  her  the  kiss,  or  peck,  of  peace.  It  always  made  him 
uncomfortable  when  he  had  to  go  away  to  the  hospital  under  the 
shadow  of  dissension  at  home. 

"Well,  mother  dear,  what  was  it  you  really  did  say  about  the 
Fenwick  engagement?" 

"It  would  be  more  proper,  my  dear,  to  speak  of  it  as  the 
Nightingale  engagement.  You  will  say  it  is  a  matter  of  form, 
but  .  .  ." 

"All  right.     The  Nightingale  engagement.  .  .  ." 

"My  dear!     So  abrupt!     To  your  mother!" 

"Well,  dear  mammy,  what  was  it,  really  now?"  This 
cajolery  took  effect,  and  the  Widow  Vereker's  soul  softened.  She 
resumed  her  knitting. 


152  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"If  you  don't  remember  what  it  was,  dear,  it  doesn't  matter." 
The  doctor  saw  that  nothing  short  of  complete  concession  would 
procure  a  tranquil  sea. 

"Of  course,  I  remember  perfectly  well,"  he  said  mendaciously. 
He  knew  that,  left  alone,  his  mother  would  supply  a  summary 
of  what  he  remembered.  She  did  so,  with  a  bound. 

"I  said,  my  dear  (and  I  am  glad  you  recollect  it,  Conrad) — 
I  said  from  the  very  first,  when  Mr.  Fenwick  was  living  at 
Krakatoa — (it  was  all  quite  right,  my  dear.  Do  you  think  I 
don't  know?  A  grown-up  daughter  and  two  servants!) — I  said 
that  any  one  with  eyes  in  their  head  could  see.  And  has  it  turned 
out  exactly  as  I  expected,  or  has  it  not?" 

"Exactly." 

"Very  well,  dear.  I'm  glad  you  say  so.  Now,  don't  contra- 
dict me  another  time." 

The  close  observer  of  the  actual  (whom  we  lay  claim  to  be)  has 
occasionally  to  report  the  apparently  impossible.  We  do  not 
suppose  we  shall  be  believed  when  we  say  that  Mrs.  Vereker 
added:  "Besides,  there  was  the  Major." 

Professor  Sales  Wilson,  Laetitia's  father,  was  the  Professor 
Sales  Wilson.  Only,  if  you  had  seen  that  eminent  scholar  when 
he  got  outside  his  library  by  accident  and  wanted  to  get  back, 
you  wouldn't  have  thought  he  was  the  anybody,  and  would  prob- 
ably have  likened  him  to  a  disestablished  hermit-crab — in  re- 
spect, that  is,  of  such  a  one's  desire  to  disappear  into  his  shell, 
and  that  respect  only.  For  no  hermit-crab  would  ever  cause  an 
acquaintance  to  wonder  why  he  should  shave  at  all  if  he  could 
do  it  no  better  than  that;  nor  what  he  was  talking  to  himself 
about  so  frequently;  nor  whether  he  polished  his  spectacles  so 
long  at  a  time  to  give  the  deep  groove  they  were  making  across 
his  nose  a  chance  of  filling  up;  nor  whether  he  would  be  less  bald 
if  he  rubbed  his  head  less;  nor  what  he  had  really  got  inside  that 
overpowering  phrenology  of  brow,  and  behind  that  aspect  of 
chronic  concentration.  But  about  the  retiring  habits  of  both 
there  could  be  no  doubt. 

He  lived  in  his  library,  attired  by  nature  in  a  dressing-gown 
and  skull-cap.  But  from  its  secret  recesses  he  issued  manifestoes 
which  shook  classical  Europe.  He  corrected  versions,  excerpted 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  153 

passages,  disallowed  authenticities,  ascribed  works  to  their  true 
authors,  and  exposed  the  pretensions  of  sciolists  with  a  vigour 
which  ought  to  have  finally  dispersed  that  unhallowed  class. 
Only  it  didn't,  because  they  are  a  class  incapable  of  shame,  and 
will  go  on  madly,  even  when  they  have  been  proved  to  be  mere, 
beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt.  Perhaps  they  had  secret  informa- 
tion about  the  domestic  circumstances  of  their  destroyer,  and 
didn't  care.  If  Yamen  had  had  private  means  of  knowing  that 
Vishnu  was  on  uncomfortable  terms  with  his  wife,  a  corrected 
version  of  the  whole  Hindu  mythology  might  have  been  necessary. 

However,  so  far  as  can  be  conjectured,  the  image  the  world 
formed  of  the  Professor  was  a  sort  of  aggregate  of  Dr.  Johnson, 
Bentley,  Grotius,  Mezzofanti,  and  a  slight  touch  of,  say  Coning- 
ton,  to  bring  him  well  up  to  date.  But  so  much  of  the  first  that 
whenever  the  raconteur  repeated  one  of  the  Professor's  moder- 
ately bon-mots,  he  always  put  "sir"  in — as,  for  instance,  "A 
punster,  sir,  is  a  man  who  demoralises  two  meanings  in  one 
word;"  or,  "Should  you  call  that  fast  life,  sir?  7  should  call  it 
slow  death."  The  raconteur  was  rather  given  to  making  use 
of  him,  and  assigning  to  him  mots  which  were  not  at  all  bons, 
because  they  only  had  the  "sir"  in  them,  and  were  otherwise 
meaningless.  He  was  distressed,  not  without  reason,  when  he 
heard  that  he  had  said  to  Max  Miiller,  or  some  one  of  that  calibre, 
"There  is  no  such  thing,  sir,  as  the  English  language!"  But  he 
very  seldom  heard  anything  about  himself,  or  any  one  else;  as 
he  passed  his  life,  as  aforesaid,  in  his  library,  buried  in  the  Phoe- 
nician Dictionary  he  hoped  he  might  live  to  bring  out.  He  had 
begun  the  fourth  letter;  but  we  don't  know  the  Phoenician 
alphabet.  Perhaps  it  has  only  four  letters  in  it. 

He  came  out  of  the  library  for  meals,  of  course.  But  he  took 
very  little  notice  of  anything  that  passed  at  the  family  board, 
and  read  nearly  the  whole  time,  occasionally  saying  something 
forcible  to  himself.  Indeed,  he  never  conversed  with  his  family 
unless  deprived  of  his  book.  This  occurred  on  the  occasion  when 
Sally  carried  the  momentous  news  of  her  mother's  intended 
marriage  to  Ladbroke  Grove  Road,  the  second  day  after  they  had 
talked  till  two  in  the  morning.  Matrimony  was  canvassed  and 
discussed  in  all  its  aspects,  and  the  particular  case  riddled  and 
sifted,  and  elucidated  from  every  point  of  the  compass,  without 


154  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

the  Professor  being  the  least  aware  that  anything  unusual  was 
afoot,  until  Grotefend  got  in  the  mayonnaise  sauce. 

"Take  your  master's  book  away,  Jenkins/'  said  the  lady  of  the 
house.  And  Jenkins,  the  tender-hearted  parlourmaid,  allowed 
master  to  keep  hold  just  to  the  end  of  the  sentence.  "Take  it 
away,  as  I  told  you,  and  wipe  that  sauce  off!" 

Sally  did  so  want  to  box  that  woman's  ears — at  least,  she  said 
so  after.  She  was  a  great  horny,  overbearing  woman,  was  Mrs. 
Sales  Wilson,  and  Sally  was  frightened  lest  Lsetitia  should  grow 
like  her.  Only,  Tishy's  teeth  never  could  get  as  big  as  that! 
Nor  wiggle. 

The  Professor,  being  deprived  of  his  volume,  seemed  to  awake 
compulsorily,  and  come  out  into  a  cold,  unlearned  world.  But 
he  smiled  amiably,  and  rubbed  his  hands  round  themselves 
rhythmically. 

"Well,  then!"  said  he.     "Say  it  all  again." 

"Say  what,  papa?" 

"All  the  chatter,  of  course." 

"What  for,  papa?" 

"For  me  to  hear.     Off  we  go!     Who's  going  to  be  married?" 

"You  see,  he  was  listening  all  the  time.  I  shouldn't  tell  him, 
if  I  were  you.  Your  father  is  really  unendurable.  And  he  gets 
worse."  Thus  the  lady  of  the  house. 

"What  does  your  mother  say  ?"  There  is  a  shade  of  asperity  in 
the  Professor's  voice. 

"Says  you  were  listening  all  the  time,  papa.  So  you  were!" 
This  is  from  La?titia's  younger  sister,  Theeny.  Her  name  was 
Athene.  Her  brother  Egerton  called  her  "Gallows  Athene" — 
an  offensive  perversion  of  the  name  of  the  lady  she  was  called 
after.  Her  mother  had  carefully  taught  all  her  children  con- 
tempt for  their  father  from  earliest  childhood.  But  toleration  of 
his  weaknesses — etymology,  and  so  on — had  taken  root  in  spite  of 
her  motherly  care,  and  the  Professor  was  on  very  good  terms  with 
his  offspring.  He  negatived  Theeny  amiably. 

"No,  my  dear,  I  was  like  Mrs.  Cluppins.  The  voices  were 
loud,  and  forced  themselves  upon  my  ear.  But  as  you  all  spoke 
at  once,  I  have  no  idea  what  anybody  said.  My  question  was  con- 
jectural— purely  conjectural.  Is  anybody  going  to  marry  any- 
body? /  don't  know." 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  155 

"What  is  your  father  talking  about  over  there?  Is  he  going 
to  help  that  tongue  or  not?  Ask  him."  For  a  peculiarity  in 
this  family  was  that  the  two  heads  of  it  always  spoke  to  one 
another  through  an  agent.  So  clearly  was  this  understood  that 
direct  speech  between  them,  on  its  rare  occasions,  was  always 
ascribed  by  distant  hearers  to  an  outbreak  of  hostilities.  If 
either  speaker  had  addressed  the  other  by  name,  the  advent  of  the 
Sergeant-at-Arms  would  have  been  the  next  thing  looked  for. 
On  this  occasion  Laetitia's  literal  transmission  of  "Are  you  going 
to  help  the  tongue  or  not,  papa?"  recalled  his  wandering  mind 
to  his  responsibilities.  Sally's  liver-wing — she  was  the  visitor — 
was  pleading  at  his  elbow  for  its  complement  of  tongue. 

But  soon  a  four-inch  space  intervened  between  the  lonely 
tongue-tip  on  the  dish  and  what  had  once  been,  in  military 
language,  its  base  of  operations.  Everybody  that  took  tongue 
had  got  tongue. 

"Well,  then,  how  about  who's  married  whom?"  Thus  the 
Professor,  resuming  his  hand-rubbing,  and  neglecting  the  leg  of 
a  fowl. 

"Make  your  father  eat  his  lunch,  Laetitia.  We  cannot  be  late 
again  this  afternoon."  Whereon  every  one  ate  too  fast;  and 
Sally  felt  very  glad  the  Professor  had  given  her  such  a  big  slice  of 
tongue,  as  she  knew  she  wouldn't  have  the  courage  to  have  a 
second  supply,  if  offered,  much  less  ask  for  it. 

"Do  you  hear,  papa?  I'm  to  make  you  eat  your  lunch,"  says 
Laetitia;  and  her  mother  murmurs  "That's  right;  make  him," 
as  though  he  were  an  anaconda  in  the  snake-house,  and  her 
daughter  a  keeper  who  could  go  inside  the  cage.  Laetitia  then 
adds  briefly  that  Mrs.  Nightingale  is  going  to  marry  Fenwick. 

"Ha!  Mercy  on  us!"  says  the  Professor  quite  vaguely,  and, 
even  more  so,  adds:  "Chicken — chicken — chicken — chicken — 
chicken!"  Though  what  he  says  next  is  more  intelligible,  it  is 
unfortunate  and  ill-chosen:  "And  who  is  Mrs.  Nightingale?" 

The  sphinx  is  mobility  itself  compared  with  Mrs.  Wilson's 
intense  preservation  of  her  status  quo.  The  import  of  which  is 
that  the  Professor's  blunders  are  things  of  everyday  occurrence — 
every  minute,  rather.  She  merely  says  to  Europe,  "You  see/' 
and  leaves  that  continent  to  deal  with  the  position.  Sally,  who 
always  gets  impatient  with  the  Wilson  family,  except  the  Pro- 


156  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

fessor  himself  and  Laetitia — though  she  is  trying  sometimes — 
now  ignores  Europe,  and  gets  the  offender  into  order  on  her  own 
account. 

"Why,  Professor  dear,  don't  you  know  Mrs.  Nightingale's  my 
mother  ?  I'm  Sally  Nightingale,  you  know !" 

"I'm  not  at  all  sure  that  I  did,  my  dear.  I  think  I  thought 
you  were  Sally  Something-else.  My  mind  is  very  absent  some- 
times. You  must  forgive  me.  Sally  Nightingale!  To  be  sure!" 

"Never  mind,  Professor  dear!"  But  the  Professor  still  looks 
vexed  at  his  blunder.  So  Sally  says  in  confirmation,  "I've  for- 
given you.  Shake  hands!"  And  doesn't  make  matters  much 
better,  for  her  action  seems  unaccountable  to  the  absent-minded 
one,  who  says,  "Why?"  first,  and  then,  "Oh,  ah,  yes — I  see. 
Shake  hands,  certainly!"  On  which  the  Sphinx,  at  the  far  end 
of  the  table,  wondered  whether  the  ancient  Phcenicians  were 
rude,  under  her  breath. 

"I'm  so  absent,  Sally  Nightingale,  that  I  didn't  even  know 
your  father  wasn't  living."  Lastitia  looks  uncomfortable,  and 
when  Sally  merely  says,  "I  never  saw  my  father,"  thinks  to  her- 
self what  a  very  discreet  girl  Sally  is.  Naturally  she  supposes 
Sally  to  be  a  wise  enough  child  to  know  something  about  her  own 
father.  But  the  Wilson  family  were  not  completely  in  the  dark 
about  an  unsatisfactory  "something  queer"  in  Sally's  extrac- 
tion; so  that  she  credits  that  unconscious  young  person  with 
having  steered  herself  skilfully  out  of  shoal-waters;  but  she  is 
not  sure  whether  to  class  her  achievement  as  intrepidity  or  cheek. 
She  is  wanted  in  the  intelligence  department  before  she  can  decide 
this  point. 

"Perhaps,  if  you  try,  Laetitia,  you'll  be  able  to  make  out 
whether  your  father  is  or  is  not  going  to  eat  his  lunch." 

But  as  this  appeal  of  necessity  causes  the  Professor  to  run  the 
risk  of  choking  himself  before  Lsetitia  has  time  to  formulate  an 
inquiry,  she  can  fairly  allow  the  matter  to  lapse,  as  far  as  she  is 
concerned.  The  dragon,  her  mother — for  that  was  how  Sally 
spoke  of  the  horny  one — kept  an  eye  firmly  fixed  on  the  unhappy 
honorary  member  of  most  learned  societies,  and  gave  the  word  of 
command,  "Take  away!"  with  such  promptitude  that  Jenkins 
nearly  carried  off  the  plate  from  under  his  knife  and  fork  as  he 
placed  them  on  it, 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  157 

A  citation  from  the  Odyssey  was  received  in  stony  silence  by 
the  Dragon,  who,  however,  remarked  to  her  younger  daughter 
that  it  was  no  use  talking  about  Phineus  and  the  Harpies,  because 
they  had  to  be  at  St.  Pancras  at  3.10,  or  lose  the  train.  And 
perhaps,  if  the  servants  were  to  be  called  Harpies,  your  father 
would  engage  the  next  one  himself.  They  were  trouble  enough 
now,  without  that. 

Owing  to  all  which,  the  reference  to  Sally's  father  got  lost  sight 
of;  and  she  wasn't  sorry,  because  Theeny,  at  any  rate,  wasn't 
wanted  to  know  anything  about  him,  whatever  Lsetitia  and  her 
mother  knew  or  suspected. 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Sally's  declaration  that  she  "never 
saw"  him  was  neither  discretion,  nor  intrepidity,  nor  cheek.  It 
was  simple  Nature.  She  had  always  regarded  her  father  as 
having  been  accessory  to  herself  before  the  fact;  also  as  having 
been,  for  some  mysterious  reason,  unpopular — perhaps  a  mauvais 
sujet.  But  he  was  Ancient  History  now — had  joined  the  Phoe- 
nicians. Why  should  she  want  to  know?  Her  attitude  of  un- 
inquiring  acquiescence  had  been  cultivated  by  her  mother,  and 
it  is  wonderful  what  a  dominant  influence  from  early  babyhood 
can  do.  Sally  seldom  spoke  of  this  mysterious  father  of  hers 
in  any  other  terms  than  those  she  had  just  used.  She  had  never 
had  an  opportunity  of  making  his  acquaintance — that  was  all. 
In  some  way,  undefined,  he  had  not  behaved  well  to  her  mother; 
and  naturally  she  sided  with  the  latter.  Once,  and  once  only, 
her  mother  had  said  to  her,  "Sally  darling,  I  don't  wish  to  talk 
about  your  father,  but  to  forget  him.  I  have  forgiven  him, 
because  of  you.  Because — how  could  I  have  done  without  you, 
kitten?"  And  thereafter,  as  Sally's  curiosity  was  a  feeble  force 
when  set  against  the  possibility  that  its  gratification  might  cause 
pain  to  her  mother,  she  suppressed  it  easily. 

But  now  and  again  little  things  would  be  said  in  her  presence 
that  would  set  her  a-thinking — little  tilings  such  as  what  the 
Professor  has  just  said.  She  may  easily  have  been  abnormally 
sensitive  on  the  point — made  more  prone  to  reflection  than  usual 
— by  last  night's  momentous  announcement.  Anyhow,  she  re- 
solved to  talk  to  Tishy  about  her  parentage  as  soon  as  they  should 
get  back  to  the  drawing-room,  where  they  were  practising.  AD 
the  two  hours  they  ought  to  have  played  in  the  morning  Tishj 


158  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

would  talk  about  nothing  but  Julius  Bradshaw.  And  look  how 
ridiculous  it  all  was!  Because  she  did  call  him  "shop-boy" — 
you  know  she  did — only  six  weeks  ago.  Sally  didn't  see  why  her 
affairs  shouldn't  have  a  turn  now;  and  although  she  was  quite 
aware  that  her  friend  wanted  her  to  begin  again  where  they  had 
left  off  before  lunch,  she  held  out  no  helping  hand,  but  gave  the 
preference  to  her  own  thoughts. 

"I  suppose  my  father  drank,"  said  Sally  to  Tishy. 

"If  you  don't  know,  dear,  how  should  I?"  said  Tishy  to  Sally. 
And  that  did  seem  plausible,  and  made  Sally  the  more  reflective. 

The  holly-leaves  were  gone  now  that  had  been  conducive  to 
thought  at  Christmas  in  this  same  room  when  we  heard  the  two 
girls  count  four  so  often,  but  Sally  could  pull  an  azalea  flower  to 
pieces  over  her  cogitations,  and  did  so,  instead  of  tuning  up 
forthwith.  Laetitia  was  preoccupied — couldn't  take  an  interest 
in  other  people's  fathers,  nor  her  own  for  that  matter.  She  tuned 
up,  though,  and  told  Sally  to  look  alive.  But  while  Sally  looks 
alive  she  backs  into  a  conversation  of  the  forenoon,  and  out  of 
the  pending  discussion  of  Sally's  paternity.  Their  two  pre- 
occupations pull  in  opposite  directions. 

"You  will  remember  not  to  say  anything,  won't  you,  Sally 
dear?  Do  promise." 

"Say  anything?  Oh  no;  I  shan't  say  anything.  I  never  do 
say  things.  What  about?" 

"You  know  as  well  as  I  do,  dear — about  Julius  Bradshaw." 

"Of  course  I  shan't,  Tishy.  Except  mother;  she  doesn't  count. 
I  say,  Tishy!" 

"Well,  dear.     Do  look  alive.     I'm  all  ready." 

"All  right.  Don't  be  in  a  hurry.  I  want  to  know  whether 
you  really  think  my  father  drank." 

"Why  should  I,  dear?  I  never  heard  anything  about  him — 
at  least,  I  never  heard  anything  myself.  Mamma  heard  some- 
thing. Only  I  wasn't  to  repeat  it.  Besides,  it  was  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  drink."  The  moment  Laetitia  said  this,  she 
knew  that  she  had  lost  her  hold  on  her  only  resource  against 
cross-examination.  When  the  difficulty  of  concealing  anything 
is  thrown  into  the  same  scale  with  the  pleasure  of  telling  it,  the 
featherweights  of  duty  and  previous  resolutions  kick  the  beam. 
Then  you  are  sorry  when  it's  too  late.  Lastitia  was,  and  could 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  159 

see  her  way  to  nothing  but  obeying  the  direction  on  her  music, 
which  was  attacca.  To  her  satisfaction,  Sally  came  in  promptly 
in  the  right  place,  and  a  first  movement  in  B  sharp  went  steadily 
through  without  a  back-lash.  There  seemed  a  chance  that  Sally 
hadn't  caught  the  last  remark,  but,  alas!  it  vanished. 

"What  was  it,  then,  if  it  wasn't  drink?"  said  she,  exactly  as 
if  there  had  been  no  music  at  all.  Laetitia  once  said  of  Sally 
that  she  was  a  horribly  direct  little  Turk.  She  was  very  often — 
in  this  instance  certainly. 

"I  suppose  it  was  the  usual  thing."  Twenty-four,  of  course, 
knew  more  than  nineteen,  and  could  speak  to  the  point  of  what 
was  and  wasn't  usual  in  matters  of  this  kind.  But  if  Lffititia 
hoped  that  vagueness  would  shake  hands  with  delicacy  and  that 
details  could  be  lubricated  away,  she  was  reckoning  without  her 
Turk. 

"What  is  the  usual  thing?" 

"Hadn't  we  better  go  on  to  the  fugue?  I  don't  care  for  the 
next  movement,  and  it's  easy " 

"Not  till  you  say  what  you  mean  by  'the  usual  thing.' " 

"Well,  dear,  I  suppose  you  know  what  half  the  divorce-cases 
are  about?" 

"Tishy!" 

"What,  dear?" 

"There  was  no  divorce!" 

"How  do  you  know,  dear?" 

"I  should  have  known  of  it." 

"How  do  you  know  that?" 

"You  might  go  on  for  ever  that  way.  Now,  Tishy  dear,  do 
be  kind  and  tell  me  what  you  heard  and  who  said  it.  I  should 
tell  you.  You  know  I  should."  This  appeal  produces  con- 
cession. 

"It  was  old  Major  Roper  told  mamma — with  blue  pockets 
under  his  eyes  and  red  all  over,  creeks  and  wheezes  when  he 
speaks — do  you  know  him?" 

"No,  I  don't,  and  I  don't  want  to.  At  least,  I've  just  seen  him 
at  a  distance.  I  could  see  he  was  purple.  Our  Major — Colonel 
Lund,  you  know — says  he's  a  horrible  old  gossip,  and  you  can't 
rely  on  a  word  he  says.  But  what  did  he  say?" 

"Well,  of  course,  I  oughtn't  to  tell  you  this,  because  I  prom- 


160  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ised  not.  What  he  said  was  that  your  mother  went  out  to  be 
married  to  your  father  in  India,  and  the  year  after  he  got  a 
divorce  because  he  was  jealous  of  some  man  your  mother  had  met 
on  the  way  out." 

"How  old  was  I?" 

"Gracious  me,  child!  how  should  /  know.  He  only  said  you 
were  a  baby  in  arms.  Of  course,  you  must  have  been,  if  you 
think  of  it."  Laetitia  here  feels  that  possible  calculations  may 
be  embarrassing,  and  tries  to  avert  them.  "Do  let's  get  on  to 
the  third  movement.  We  shall  spend  all  the  afternoon  talking." 

"Very  well,  Tishy,  fire  away!  Oh,  no;  it's  me."  And  the 
third  movement  is  got  under  way,  till  we  reach  a  pizzicato  passage 
which  Sally  begins  playing  with  the  bow  by  mistake. 

"That's  pits!"  says  the  first  violin,  and  we  have  to  begin  again 
at  the  top  of  the  page,  and  the  Professor  in  his  library  wonders 
why  on  earth  those  girls  can't  play  straight  on.  The  Ancient 
Phoenicians  are  fidgeted  by  the  jerks  in  the  music. 

But  it  comes  to  an  end  in  time,  and  then  Sally  begins  again: 

"I  know  that  story's  all  nonsense  now,  Tishy." 

"Why?" 

"Because  mother  told  me  once  that  my  father  never  saw  me, 
so  come  now!  Because  the  new-bornest  baby  that  ever  was 
couldn't  be  too  small  for  its  father  to  see."  Sally  pauses  reflect- 
ively, then  adds:  "Unless  he  was  blind.  And  mother  would  have 
said  if  he'd  been  blind." 

"He  couldn't  have  been  blind,  because " 

"Now,  Tishy,  you  see!  You're  keeping  back  lots  of  things 
that  old  wheezy  squeaker  said.  And  you  ought  to  tell  me — you 
know  you  ought.  Why  couldn't  he?" 

"You're  in  such  a  hurry,  dear.  I  was  going  to  tell  you. 
Major  Eoper  said  he  never  saw  him  but  once,  and  it  was  out 
shooting  tigers,  and  he  was  the  best  shot  for  a  civilian  he'd  ever 
seen.  There  was  a  tiger  was  just  going  to  lay  hold  of  a  man 
and  carry  him  off  when  your  father  shot  him  from  two  hundred 
yards  off " 

"The  man  or  the  tiger?  I'm  on  the  tiger's  side.  I  always 
am." 

"The  tiger,  stupid!  You  wouldn't  want  your  own  father  to 
aim  at  a  tiger  and  hit  a  man  ?" 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  161 

Sally  reflects.  "I  don't  think  I  should.  But,  I  say,  Tishy., 
do  you  mean  to  say  that  Major  Roper  meant  to  say  that  he  was 
out  shooting  with  my  father  and  didn't  know  what  his  name 
was?" 

"Oh,  no.  He  said  his  name,  of  course.  It  was  Palliser  .  .  . 
that  was  right,  wasn't  it?" 

"Oh  dear,  no;  it  was  Graythorpe.     Palliser  indeed !" 

"It  was  true  about  the  tiger  though,  because  Major  Roper  says 
he's  got  the  skin  himself  now." 

"Only  it  wasn't  my  father  that  shot  it.  That's  quite  clear." 
Sally  was  feeling  greatly  relieved,  and  showed  it  in  the  way  she 
added:  "Now,  doesn't  that  just  show  what  a  parcel  of  nonsense 
the  whole  story  is?" 

Sally  had  never  told  her  friend  about  her  mother's  name  before 
she  took  that  of  Nightingale.  Very  slight  hints  had  sufficed 
to  make  her  reticent  about  Graythorpe.  Colonel  Lund  had  once 
said  to  her:  "Of  course,  your  mother  was  Mrs.  Graythorpe  when 
she  came  to  England;  that  was  before  she  changed  her  name  to 
Nightingale,  you  know?"  She  knew  that  her  mother's  money 
had  come  to  her  from  a  "grandfather  Nightingale,"  whose  name 
had  somehow  accompanied  it,  and  had  been  (very  properly,  as  it 
seemed  to  her)  bestowed  on  herself  as  well  as  her  mother.  They 
were  part  and  parcel  of  each  other  obviously.  In  fact,  she  had 
never  more  than  just  known  of  the  existence  of  the  name  Gray- 
thorpe in  her  family  at  all,  and  it  had  been  imputed  by  her  to  this 
unpopular  father  of  hers,  and  put  aside,  as  it  were,  on  a  shelf 
with  him.  Even  if  her  mother  had  not  suggested  a  desire  that 
the  name  should  lapse,  she  herself  would  have  accepted  its  ex- 
tinction on  her  own  account. 

But  now  this  name  came  out  of  the  past  as  a  consolation. 
Palliser  indeed!  How  could  mamma  have  been  Mrs.  Graythorpe 
if  her  husband's  name  had  been  Palliser?  Sally  was  not  wise 
enough  in  worldly  matters  to  know  that  divorced  ladies  commonly 
fall  back  on  their  maiden  names.  And  she  had  been  kept,  or 
left,  so  much  in  the  dark  that  she  had  taken  for  granted  that 
her  mother's  had  been  Nightingale — that,  in  fact,  she  had  re- 
taken her  maiden  name  at  her  father's  wish,  possibly  as  a  cen- 
sure on  the  misbehaviour  of  a  husband  who  drank  or  gambled  or 
was  otherwise  reprobate.  Her  young  mind  had  been  manipu- 


162  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

lated  all  one  way — had  been  in  contact  only  with  its  manipulators. 
Had  she  had  a  sister  or  brother,  they  would  have  canvassed  the 
subject,  speculated,  run  conclusions  to  earth,  and  demanded 
enlightenment.  She  had  none  but  her  mother  to  go  to,  unless 
it  were  Colonel  Lund;  and  the  painful  but  inevitable  task  of 
both  was  to  keep  her  in  the  dark  about  her  parentage  at  all 
hazards.  "If  ever,"  said  the  former  to  the  latter,  "my  darling 
girl  has  a  child  of  her  own,  I  may  be  able  to  tell  her  her  mother's 
story."  Till  then,  it  would  be  impossible. 

Sally  had  had  a  narrow  escape  of  knowing  more  about  this 
story  when  the  veteran  Sub-Dean  qualified  himself  for  an 
obituary  in  the  "Times,"  which  she  chanced  upon  and  read  before 
her  mother  had  time  to  detect  and  suppress  it.  Luckily,  a 
reasonable  economy  of  type  had  restricted  the  names  and  designa- 
tions of  all  the  wives  he  had  driven  tandem,  and  no  more  was 
said  of  his  third  than  that  she  was  Eosalind,  the  widow  of  Paul 
Nightingale.  So,  as  soon  as  Sally's  mother  had  read  the  text 
herself,  she  was  able  to  say  to  the  Major,  quite  undisturbedly, 
that  the  old  Sub-Dean  had  gone  at  last,  leaving  thirteen  children. 
The  name  Graythorpe  had  not  crept  in. 

But  we  left  Sally  with  a  question  unanswered.  Didn't  that 
show  what  nonsense  old  Major  Roper's  story  was?  Laetitia  was 
rather  glad  to  assent,  and  get  the  story  quashed,  or  at  least 
prorogued  sine  die. 

"It  did  seem  rather  nonsense,  Sally  dear.  Major  Roper  was 
a  stupid  old  man,  and  evidently  took  more  than  was  good  for 
him."  Intoxicants  are  often  of  great  service  in  conversation. 

In  this  case  they  contributed  to  the  reinstatement  of  Mr. 
Bradshaw.  Dear  me,  it  did  seem  so  funny  to  Sally!  Only  the 
other  day  this  young  man  had  been  known  to  her  on  no  other 
lines  than  as  an  established  fool,  who  came  to  stare  at  her  out 
of  the  corners  of  his  dark  eyes  all  through  the  morning  service 
at  St.  Satisfax.  And  now  it  was  St.  John's,  Ladbroke  Grove 
Road,  and,  what  was  more,  he  was  being  tolerated  as  a  semi- 
visitor  at  the  Wilsons' — a  visitor  with  explanations  in  an  under- 
tone. This  was  the  burden  of  Laetitia,  as  soon  as  she  had  con- 
trived to  get  Sally's  troublesome  parent  shelved. 

"Why  mamma  needs  always  to  be  in  such  a  furious  fuss  to 
drag  in  his  violin,  I  do  not  know.  As  if  he  needed  to  be  ac- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  163 

counted  for!  Of  course,  if  you  ask  a  Hottentot  to  evenings, 
you  have  to  explain  him.  But  the  office-staff  at  Cattley's  (which 
is  really  one  of  the  largest  firms  in  the  country)  are  none  of  them 
Hottentots,  but  the  contrary.  .  .  .  Now  I  know,  dear,  you're 
going  to  say  what's  the  contrary  of  a  Hottentot,  and  all  the  while 
you  know  perfectly  well  what  I  mean." 

"Cut  away,  Tishy!     What  next?" 

"Well — next,  don't  you  think  it  very  dignified  of  Mr.  Brad- 
shaw  to  be  able  to  be  condescended  to  and  explained  in  corners 
under  people's  breaths  and  not  to  show  it?" 

"He's  got  to  lump  it,  if  he  doesn't  like  it."  Sally,  you  see, 
has  given  up  her  admirer  readily  enough,  but,  as  she  herself 
afterwards  said,  it's  quite  another  pair  of  shoes  when  you're 
called  on  to  give  three  cheers  for  what's  really  no  merit  at  all! 
What  does  the  young  man  expect? 

"Now,  that's  unkind,  Sally  dear.  You  wouldn't  like  me  to. 
Anyhow,  that's  what  mamma  does.  Takes  ladies  of  a  certain 
position  or  with  expectations  into  corners,  and  says  she  hates 
the  expression  gentleman  and  lady,  but  they  know  what  she 
means.  .  .  ." 

"/  know.  And  they  goozle  comfortably  at  her,  like  Goody 
Vereker." 

"Doesn't  it  make  one's  flesh  creep  to  have  a  mother  like  that? 
I  do  get  to  hate  the  very  sight  of  shot  silk  and  binoculars  on  a 
leg  when  she  goes  on  so.  But  I  suppose  we  never  shall  get  on 
together — mamma  and  I." 

"What  does  the  Professor  think  about  him?" 

"Oh — papa?  Of  course,  papa's  perfectly  hopeless!  It's  the 
only  true  thing  mamma  ever  says — that  he's  perfectly  hope- 
less. What  do  you  suppose  he  did  that  Sunday  afternoon  when 
Julius  Bradshaw  came  and  had  tea  and  brought  the  Strad — the 
first  time,  I  mean?  .  .  .  Why,  he  actually  fancied  he  had  come 
from  the  shop  with  a  parcel,  and  never  found  out  he  couldn't 
have  when  he  had  tea  in  the  drawing-room,  and  only  suspected 
something  when  he  played  Rode's  'Air  with  Variations  for 
Violin  and  Piano.'  Just  fancy!  He  wanted  to  know  why  he 
shouldn't  have  tea  when  every  one  else  did,  and  offered  him  cake! 
And  Sunday  afternoon  and  a  Stradivarius !  Do  say  you  think 
my  parents  trying,  Sally  dearl" 


164  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Sally  assented  to  everything  in  an  absent  way;  but  that  didn't 
matter  as  long  as  she  did  it.  Laetitia  only  wanted  to  talk.  She 
seemed,  thought  Sally,  improved  by  the  existing  combination  of 
events.  She  had  had  to  climb  down  off  the  high  stilts  about 
Bradshaw,  and  had  only  worked  in  one  or  two  slight  Grundula- 
tions  (a  word  of  Dr.  Vereker's)  into  her  talk  this  morning.  Tishy 
wasn't  a  bad  fellow  at  all  (Sally's  expression),  only,  if  she  hadn't 
been  taught  to  strut,  she  wouldn't  have  been  any  the  worse.  It 
was  all  that  overpowering  mother  of  hers! 

Before  she  parted  with  her  friend  that  afternoon  Sally  had  a 
sudden  access  of  Turkish  directness: 

"Tishy  dear,  are  you  going  to  accept  Julius  Bradshaw  if  he 
asks  you,  or  not  ?" 

"Well,  dear,  you  know  we  must  look  at  it  from  the  point  of 
view  of  what  he  would  have  been  if  it  hadn't  been  for  that 
unfortunate  nervous  system  of  his.  The  poor  fellow  couldn't 
help  it." 

"But  are  you,  or  not  ?     That's  what  I  want  an  answer  to." 

"Sally  dear!  Eeally — you're  just  like  so  much  dynamite. 
What  would  you  do  yourself  if  you  were  me?  I  ask  you." 

"I  should  do  exactly  whatever  you  settle  to  do  if  I  were  you. 
It  stands  to  reason.  But  what's  it  going  to  be?  That's  the 
point." 

"He  hasn't  proposed  yet." 

"That  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it.  What  you've  got 
.to  do  is  to  make — up — your — mind."  These  last  four  words  are 
very  staccato  indeed.  Tishy  recovers  a  dignity  she  has  rather 
been  allowing  to  lapse. 

"By  the  time  you're  my  age,  Sally  dear,  you'll  see  there  are 
ways  and  ways  of  looking  at  things.  Everything  can't  be  wrapped 
up  in  a  nutshell.  We're  not  Ancient  Phoenicians  nowadays, 
whatever  papa  may  say.  But  you're  a  dear,  impulsive  little 
puss." 

The  protest  was  feeble  in  form  and  substance,  and  quite  un- 
worthy of  Miss  Sales  Wilson,  the  daughter  of  the  Professor  Sales 
Wilson.  No  wonder  Sally  briefly  responded,  "Stuff  and  non- 
sense!" and  presently  went  home. 

Of  course,  the  outer  circle  of  Mrs.  Nightingale's  society  (for 
in  this  matter  we  are  all  like  Kegents  Park)  had  their  say  about 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  165 

her  proposed  marriage.  But  they  don't  come  into  our  story;  and 
besides,  they  had  too  few  data  for  their  opinions  to  be  of  any 
value.  What  a  difference  it  would  have  made  if  old  Major 
Eoper  had  met  Fenwick  and  recalled  the  face  of  the  dead  shot 
who,  it  seemed,  had  somehow  ceded  his  tiger-skin  to  him.  But 
no  such  thing  happened,  nor  did  anything  else  come  about  either 
to  revive  the  story  of  the  divorce  or  to  throw  a  light  on  the 
identity  of  Palliser  and  Fenwick.  Eight  weeks  after  the  latter 
(or  the  former?)  had  for  the  second  time  disclosed  his  passion 
to  the  same  woman,  the  couple  were  married  at  the  church  of 
St.  Satisfax,  and,  having  started  for  the  Continent  the  same 
afternoon,  found  themselves,  quite  unreasonably  happy,  wander- 
ing about  in  France  with  hardly  a  thought  beyond  the  day  at 
most,  so  long  as  a  letter  came  from  Sally  at  the  postes-restantes 
when  expected.  And  he  had  remembered  nothing! 


CHAPTER  XVI 

OF  A  WEDDING  PARTY  AND  AN  OLD  MAN'S  RETROSPECT.  A  HOPE  OF 
RETRIBUTIVE  JUSTICE  HEREAFTER.  CHARLEY'S  AUNT,  AND  PYRAMUS 
AND  THISBE.  HOW  SALLY  TRIED  TO  PUMP  THE  COLONEL  AND  GOT 
HALF  A  BUCKETFUL 

AND  thus  it  came  about  that  Rosalind  Palliser  (nee  Gray- 
thorpe)  stood  for  the  second  time  at  the  altar  of  matrimony  with 
the  same  bridegroom  under  another  name.  The  absence  of 
bridesmaids  pronounced  and  accented  the  fact  that  the  bride  was 
a  widow,  though,  as  there  were  very  few  of  the  congregation  of 
St.  Satisfax  who  did  not  know  her  as  such,  the  announcement 
was  hardly  necessary.  Discussion  of  who  her  late  husband  was, 
or  was  not,  had  long  since  given  way  to  a  belief  that  he  was  a 
bad  lot,  and  that  the  less  that  was  said  about  him  the  better. 
If  any  one  who  was  present  at  the  wedding  was  still  constructing 
theories  about  his  identity — whether  he  had  divorced  his  wife, 
was  divorced  himself,  or  was  dead — certainly  none  of  those 
theories  connected  themselves  with  the  present  bridegroom.  As 
for  Sally,  her  only  feeling,  over  and  above  her  ordinary  curi- 
osity about  her  father,  was  a  sort  of  paradoxical  indignation 
that  his  intrusion  into  her  mother's  life  should  have  prevented 
her  daughter  figuring  as  a  bridesmaid.  It  would  have  been  so 
jolly!  But  Sally  was  perfectly  well  aware  that  widows,  strong- 
nerved  from  experience,  stand  in  no  need  of  official  help  in  get- 
ting their  "things"  on,  and  acquiesced  perforce  in  her  position 
of  a  mere  unqualified  daughter. 

The  Major — that  is  to  say,  Colonel  Lund — stayed  on  after 
the  wedding,  under  a  sort  of  imputation  of  guardianship  neces- 
sary for  Sally — an  imputation  accepted  by  her  in  order  that  the 
old  boy  should  not  feel  lonesome,  far  more  than  for  any  advan- 
tage to  herself.  She  wasn't  sure  it  did  him  any  good  though, 
after  all,  for  the  wedding-party  (if  it  could  be  called  one,  it  was 

166 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  167 

so  small),  having  decided  that  its  afternoon  had  been  com- 
pletely broken  into,  gave  itself  up  to  dissipation,  and  went  to 
see  "Charley's  Aunt.'*  The  old  gentleman  did  not  feel  equal 
to  this,  but  said  if  Sally  told  him  all  about  it  afterwards  it  would 
be  just  as  good,  and  insisted  on  her  going.  He  said  he  would  be 
all  right,  and  she  kissed  him  and  left  him  reading  "Harry 
Lorrequer,"  or  pretending  to. 

The  wedding-party  seemed  to  have  grown,  thought  the  Major, 
in  contact  with  the  theatrical  world  when,  on  its  return,  it  filled 
the  summer  night  with  sound,  and  made  the  one-eyed  piebald 
cat  who  lived  at  The  Eetreat  foreclose  an  interview  with  a  peevish 
friend  acrimoniously.  Perhaps  it  was  only  because  the  laughter 
and  the  jests,  the  good-nights  mixed  with  echoes  of  "Charley's 
Aunt,"  and  reminders  of  appointments  for  the  morrow,  broke  in 
so  suddenly  on  a  long  seclusion  that  the  Major  seemed  to  hear 
so  many  voices  beyond  his  expectation. 

The  time  had  not  hung  heavy  on  his  hands  though — at  least, 
no  heavier  than  time  always  hangs  on  hands  that  wore  gloves 
with  no  fingers  near  upon  eighty  years  ago.  The  specific  gravity 
of  the  hours  varies  less  and  less  with  loneliness  and  companion- 
ship as  we  draw  nearer  to  the  last  one  of  all — the  heaviest  or 
lightest,  which  will  it  be?  The  old  boy  had  been  canvassing 
this  point  with  another  old  boy,  a  real  Major,  our  friend  Eoper, 
at  the  Hurkaru  Club  not  long  before,  and,  after  he  had  read  a 
few  pages  of  "Harry  Lorrequer"  he  put  his  spectacles  in  to  keep 
the  place,  and  fell  back  into  a  maze  of  recurrence  and  reflection. 

Was  he  honest, 'or  was  it  affectation,  when  he  said  to  that 
pursy  and  purple  old  warrior  that  if  the  doctor  were  to  tell  him 
he  had  but  an  hour  to  live  he  should  feel  greatly  relieved  and 
happy?  Was  his  heart  only  pretending  to  laugh  at  the  panic 
his  old  friend  was  stricken  with  at  the  mere  mention  of  the 
word  "death" — he  who  had  in  his  time  faced  death  a  hundred 
times  without  a  qualm?  But  then  that  was  military  death, 
and  was  his  business.  Death  the  civilian,  with  paragraphs  in 
the  newspapers  to  say  "the  worst"  was  feared,  and  the  fever 
being  kept  down,  and  the  system  being  kept  up,  and  smells  of 
carbolic  acid  and  hourly  bulletins — that  was  the  thing  he  shrank 
from.  Why,  the  Major  could  remember  old  Jack  Roper  at 
Delhi,  in  the  Mutiny,  going  out  in  the  darkness  to  capture  those 


168  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Sepoy  guns — what  was  that  place  called — Ludlow  Castle? — 
and  now!  .  .  . 

"Oh  dammy,  Colonel!  Why,  good  Lard!  who's  dyin'  or 
goin'  to  die?  Time  enough  to  talk  about  dyin'  when  the  cap 
fits.  You  take  my  advice,  and  try  a  couple  of  Cockle's  anti- 
bilious.  My  word  for  it,  it's  liver!  .  .  ."  And  then  old  Jack 
followed  this  with  an  earthquake-attack  of  coughing  that  looked 
very  much  as  if  the  cap  was  going  to  fit.  But  came  out  of  it 
incorrigible,  and  as  soon  as  he  could  speak  endorsed  his  advice 
with  an  admonitory  forefinger:  "You  do  as  I  tell  you,  and  try 
'em." 

But  the  fossil,  who  was  ten  years  his  senior,  answered  his 
own  question  to  himself  in  the  affirmative  as  he  sat  there  listening 
to  the  distant  murmur  of  wheels  on  the  Uxbridge  Eoad  and 
the  music  of  the  cats  without.  Yes,  he  was  quite  honest  about 
it.  He  had  no  complaint  to  make  of  life,  for  the  last  twenty  years 
at  any  rate.  His  dear  little  protegee — that  was  how  he  thought 
of  Sally's  mother — had  taken  good  care  of  that.  But  he  had 
some  harsh  indictments  against  earlier  years — or  rather  had 
had.  For  he  had  dismissed  the  culprits  with  a  caution,  and  put 
the  records  on  a  back-shelf. 

He  could  take  them  down  now  and  look  at  them  without 
flinching.  After  all,  he  was  so  near  the  end!  What  did  it 
matter  ? 

There  they  all  were,  the  neglected  chronicles,  each  in  its 
corner  of  his  mind.  Of  his  school-days,  a  record  with  all  the 
blots  and  errors  worked  into  the  text  and  made  to  do  duty  for 
ornaments.  Not  a  blemish  unforgiven.  It  is  even  so  with  us, 
with  you;  we  all  forgive  our  schools.  Of  his  first  uniform  and 
his  first  love,  two  records  with  a  soil  on  each.  For  a  chemical 
brother  spilt  sulphuric  acid  over  the  first,  and  the  second  married 
a  custom-house  officer.  Of  his  first  great  cloud — for,  if  he  did 
not  quite  forget  his  first  love,  he  soon  got  a  second  and  even  a 
third — a  cloud  that  came  out  of  a  letter  that  reached  him  in 
camp  at  Eawal  Pindi,  and  told  him  that  his  father,  a  solicitor 
of  unblemished  character  till  then,  had  been  indicted  for  fraudu- 
lent practices,  and  would  have  to  stand  his  trial  for  misde- 
meanour. Of  a  later  letter,  even  worse,  that  told  of  his  acquittal 
on  the  score  of  insanity,  and  of  how,  when  he  went  back  two  years 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  169 

after  on  his  first  leave,  he  went  to  see  his  father  in  an  asylum ; 
who  did  not  know  him  and  called  him  "my  lord,"  and  asked  him 
to  "bring  his  case  before  the  house."  Then  of  a  marriage,  like 
a  dream  now,  with  a  wife  who  left  him  and  a  child  that  died; 
and  then  of  many  colourless  years  of  mere  official  routine,  which 
might  have  gone  on  till  he  fell  down  in  harness,  but  for  the 
chance  that  threw  in  his  way  the  daughter  of  an  old  friend  in 
sore  trouble  and  alone.  Not  until  her  loneliness  and  want  of  a 
protector  on  her  voyage  home  suggested  it  did  the  harness 
come  off  the  old  horse.  And  then,  as  we  have  seen,  followed  the 
happiest  fourth  part  of  his  life,  as  he  accounted  it,  throughout 
which  he  had  never  felt  so  willing  to  die  as  he  had  done  before. 
Rosalind  Graythorpe  grew  into  it  as  a  kind  of  adopted  daughter, 
and  brought  with  her  the  morsel  of  new  humanity  that  had 
become  Sally — that  would  be  back  in  an  hour  from  "Charley's 
Aunt." 

And  now  Rosy  had  found  a  guardian,  and  was  provided  for. 
It  would  be  no  way  amiss  now  for  the  Major  to  take  advantage 
of  death.  There  is  so  much  to  be  said  for  it  when  the  world  has 
left  one  aching! 

His  confidence  that  his  protegee  had  really  found  a  haven 
was  no  small  compliment  to  Fenwick.  For  the  latter,  with  his 
strange  unknown  past,  had  nothing  but  his  personality  to  rely 
on;  and  the  verdict  of  the  Major,  after  knowing  him  twelve 
months,  was  as  decisive  on  this  point  as  if  he  had  known  him 
twelve  years.  "He  may  be  a  bit  hot-tempered  and  impulsive," 
said  he  to  Sally.  "But  I  really  couldn't  say,  if  I  were  asked, 
why  I  think  so.  It's  a  mere  idea.  Otherwise,  it's  simply  im- 
possible to  help  liking  him."  To  which  Sally  replied,  borrow- 
ing an  expression  from  Ann  the  housemaid,  that  Fenwick  was 
a  cup  of  tea.  It  was  metaphorical  and  descriptive  of  invigora- 
tion. 

But  the  Major's  feeling  that  he  was  now  at  liberty  to  try 
Death  after  Life,  to  make  for  port  after  stormy  seas,  had  scarcely 
a  trace  in  it  of  dethronement  or  exclusion  from  privileges  once 
possessed.  It  was  not  his  smallest  tribute  to  Fenwick  that  he 
should  admit  the  idea  to  his  mind  at  all — that  he  might  have 
gained  a  son  rather  than  lost  a  daughter.  At  least,  he  need  not 
reject  that  view  of  the  case,  but  it  would  not  do  to  build  on  it 


170  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Unberufen!  The  Major  tapped  three  times  on  the  little  table 
where  the  lamp  stood  and  "Harry  Lorrequer"  lay  neglected.  He 
pulled  out  his  watch,  and  decided  that  they  would  not  be  very 
long  now.  He  would  not  go  to  bed  till  he  had  seen  the  kitten — 
he  usually  spoke  of  her  so  to  her  mother.  He  had  to  disturb 
the  kitten's  cat,  who  was  asleep  on  him,  to  get  at  the  watch; 
who,  being  selfish,  made  a  grievance  of  it,  and  went  away  piqued 
after  stretching.  Well,  he  was  sorry  of  course,  but  it  would  have 
had  to  come,  some  time.  And  he  hadn't  moved  for  ever  so 
long! 

"I  wonder,"  half  said,  half  thought  he  to  himself,  "I  wonder 
who  or  what  he  really  is?  ...  If  only  we  could  have  known! 
.  .  .  Was  I  right  not  to  urge  delay?  .  .  .  Only  Eosey  was  so 
confident.  .  .  .  Could  a  woman  of  her  age  feel  so  sure  and  be 
misled  ?" 

It  was  her  certainty  that  had  dragged  his  judgment  along  a 
path  it  might  otherwise  have  shrunk  from.  He  could  not  know 
her  reasons,  but  he  felt  their  force  in  her  presence.  Now 
she  was  gone,  he  doubted.  Had  he  been  a  fool  after  all  ? 

"Well — well;  it  can't  be  altered  now.  And  she  would  have 
done  it  just  the  same  whatever  I  said.  ...  I  suppose  she  was 
like  that  when  she  was  a  girl.  ...  I  wish  I  had  even  seen  that 
husband  of  hers.  ...  So  odd  they  should  both  be  Algernon! 
Does  he  know,  I  wonder,  that  the  other  was  Algernon?"  For 
the  Major  had  religiously  adhered  to  his  promise  not  to  say 
anything  to  Fenwick  about  the  old  story.  He  knew  she  had  told 
it,  or  would  tell  it  in  her  own  time. 

Then  his  thoughts  turned  to  revival  of  how  and  where  he 
found  her  first,  and,  as  it  all  came  back  to  him,  you  could  have 
guessed,  had  you  seen  his  face,  that  they  had  lighted  on  the  man 
who  was  the  evil  cause  of  all,  and  the  woman  who  had  abetted 
him.  The  old  hand  on  the  table  that  had  little  more  strength 
in  it  than  when  it  wore  a  hedger's  glove  near  eighty  years  ago, 
closed  with  the  grip  of  all  the  force  it  had,  and  the  lamp-globe 
rang  as  the  tremor  of  his  arm  shook  the  table. 

"Oh,  I  pray  God  there  is  a  hell,"  came  audibly  from  as  kind 
a  heart  as  ever  beat.  "How  I  pray  God  there  is  a  hell !"  Then 
the  stress  of  his  anger  seemed  to  have  exhausted  him,  for  he  lay 
back  in  his  armchair  with  his  eyes  closed.  In  a  few  moments 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  171 

he  drew  a  long  breath,  and  as  he  wiped  the  drops  from  his  brow, 
said  aloud  to  himself:  "I  wish  the  kitten  would  come."  He 
seemed  happier  only  from  speaking  of  her.  And  then  sat  on 
and  waited — waited  as  for  a  rescue — for  Sally  to  come  and  fill 
up  the  house  with  her  voice  and  her  indispensable  self. 

Something  of  an  inconsistency  in  the  attitude  of  his  mind 
may  have  struck  across  the  current  of  his  reflections — some- 
thing connected  with  what  this  indispensable  thing  actually 
was  and  whence — for  his  thoughts  relented  as  the  image  of  her 
came  back  to  him.  Where  would  those  eyes  be,  conspirators 
with  the  lids  above  them  and  the  merry  fluctuations  of  the 
brows;  where  would  those  lips  be,  from  which  the  laughter 
never  quite  vanished,  even  as  the  ripple  of  the  ocean's  edge 
tries  how  small  it  can  get  but  never  dies  outright;  where  the 
great  coils  of  black  hair  that  would  not  go  inside  any  ordinary 
oilskin  swimming-cap;  where  the  incorrigible  impertinence  and 
flippancy  be  we  never  liked  to  miss  a  word  of;  where,  in  short, 
would  Sally  be  if  she  had  never  emerged  from  that  black  shadow 
in  the  past? 

Easy  enough  to  say  that,  had  she  not  done  so,  something 
else  quite  as  good  might  have  been.  Very  likely.  How  can 
we  limit  the  possible  to  the  conditional-praeter-pluperfect  tense? 
But  then,  you  see,  it  wouldn't  have  been  Sally!  That's  the 
point. 

Sally's  mother  had  followed  such  thoughts  to  the  length  of 
almost  forgiving  the  author  of  her  troubles.  But  she  could  not 
forgive  him  considered  also  as  the  author  of  her  husband's.  The 
Major  could  not  find  any  forgiveness  at  all,  though  the  thought 
of  Sally  just  sufficed  to  modify  the  severity  of  his  condemnation. 
Leniency  dawned. 

"Yes — yes;  I  was  wrong  to  say  that.  But  I  couldn't  help 
it."  So  said  the  old  man  to  himself,  but  quite  as  though  he 
spoke  to  some  one  else.  He  paused  a  little,  then  said  again: 
"Yes,  I  was  wrong.  But  oh,  what  a  damned  scoundrel !  And 
what  a  woman !"  Then,  as  though  he  feared  a  return  of  his  old 
line  of  thought,  "I  wish  Sally  would  come."  And  a  dreadful 
half-thought  came  to  him,  "Suppose  there  were  a  fire  at  the 
theatre,  and  I  had  to  wire  .  .  .  why — that  would  be  worst  of 
all!" 


119  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

So,  almost  without  a  pause  between,  he  had  prayed  for  a  hell 
to  punish  a  crime,  and  for  the  safety  of  the  treasured  thing 
that  was  its  surviving  record — a  creature  that  but  for  that  crime 
would  never  have  drawn  breath. 

His  reading-lamp  had  burned  out  its  young  enthusiasm,  and 
was  making  up  its  mind  to  go  out,  only  not  in  any  hurry.  It 
would  expire  with  dignity  and  leave  a  rich  inheritance  of  stench. 
Meanwhile,  its  decadence  was  marked  enough  to  frank  the 
Major  in  neglecting  "Harry  Lorrequer"  for  the  rest  of  the  time, 
and  also  served  to  persuade  him  that  he  had  really  been  reading. 
Abstention  from  a  book  under  compulsion  has  something  of  the 
character  of  perusal.  Gibbon  could  not  have  collected  his  ma- 
terials on  those  lines,  certainly.  But  the  Major  felt  his  con- 
science clearer  from  believing  that  he  meant  to  go  on  where  he 
had  been  obliged  to  stop.  He  cancelled  "Harry  Lorrequer," 
put  him  back  in  the  bookcase  to  make  an  incident,  then  began 
actively  waiting  for  the  return  of  the  playgoers.  Eeference  to 
his  watch  at  short  intervals  intensified  their  duration,  added 
gall  to  their  tediousness.  But  so  convinced  was  he  that  they 
"would  be  here  directly"  that  it  was  at  least  half-an-hour  before 
he  reconsidered  this  insane  policy  and  resumed  his  chair  with 
a  view  to  keeping  awake  in  it.  He  was  convinced  he  was  suc- 
ceeding, had  not  noticed  he  was  dozing,  when  he  was  suddenly 
wrenched  out  of  the  jaws  of  sleep  by  the  merry  voices  of  the 
home-comers  and  the  loss  of  the  piebald  cat's  temper  as  afore- 
said. 

"Oh,  Major  dear,  you  haven't  gone  to  bed!  You  will  be  so 
tired !  Why  didn't  you  go  ?" 

"I've  been  very  happy,  chick.  I've  been  reading  'Harry 
Lorrequer.'  I  like  Charles  Lever,  because  I  read  him  when  I 
was  a  boy.  What's  o'clock?"  He  pulled  out  his  watch  with  a 
pretence,  easy  of  detection,  that  he  had  not  just  done  so  ten 
minutes  before.  It  was  a  lie  about  "Harry  Lorrequer,"  you  see, 
so  a  little  extra  didn't  matter. 

"It's  awfully  late!"  Sally  testified.  "Very  nearly  as  late  as 
it's  possible  to  be.  But  now  we're  in  for  it,  we  may  as  well 
make  it  a  nocturnal  dissipation.  Ann! — don't  go  to  bed;  at 
least,  not  before  you've  brought  some  more  fresh  water.  This 
will  take  years  to  hot  up.  Oh,  Major,  Major,  why  didn't  you 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  173 

make  yourself  some  toddy?  I  never  go  out  for  five  minutes 
but  you  don't  make  yourself  any  toddy!" 

"I  don't  want  it,  dear  child.  I've  been  drinking  all  day — 
however,  of  course,  it  was  a  wedding.  .  .  ." 

"But  you  must  have  some  now,  anyhow.  Stop  a  minute, 
there's  some  one  coming  up  the  doorsteps  and  Ann's  fastened 
up.  .  .  .  No,  it's  not  the  policeman.  /  know  who  it  is.  Stop 
a  minute."  And  then  presently  the  Major  hears  Sally's  half 
of  an  interview,  apparently  through  a  keyhole.  "I  shan't  open 
the  door  .  .  .  two  bolts  and  a  key  and  a  chain — the  idea !  What 
is  it?  ...  My  pocky-anky?  .  .  .  Keep  it,  it  won't  bite  you 
.  .  .  send  it  to  the  wash !  .  .  .  No,  really,  do  keep  it  if  you  don't 
mind — keep  it  till  Brahms  on  Thursday.  Eemember!  Good- 
night." But  it  isn't  quite  good-night,  for  Sally  arrests  de- 
parture. "Stop !  What  a  couple  of  idiots  we  are !  .  .  .  What 
for? — why — because  you  might  have  stuffed  it  in  the  letter-box 
all  along."  And  the  incident  closes  on  the  line  indicated. 

"It  was  only  my  medical  adviser,"  Sally  says,  returning  with 
explanations.  "Found  my  wipe  in  the  cab." 

"Dr.  Vereker?" 

"Yes.  Dr.  Him.  Exactly !  We  bawled  at  each  other  through 

the  keyhole  like  Pyramus  and  Trilby "  She  becomes  so 

absorbed  in  the  details  of  the  toddy  that  she  has  to  stand  a 
mere  emendation  over  until  it  is  ready.  Then  she  completes:  "I 
mean  Thisbe.  I  wonder  where  they've  got  to?" 

"Pyramus  and  Thisbe?" 

"No,  mother  and  her  young  man.  .  .  .  No,  I  won't  sit  on  you. 
I'll  sit  here;  down  alongside — so!  Then  I  shan't  shake  the 
toddy  overboard." 

Her  white  soft  hand  is  so  comforting  as  it  lies  on  the  Major's 
on  the  chair-arm  that  he  is  fain  to  enjoy  it  a  little,  however 
reproachful  the  clock-face  may  be  looking.  You  can  pretend 
your  toddy  is  too  hot,  almost  any  length  of  time,  as  long  as  no 
one  else  touches  the  tumbler ;  also  you  can  drink  as  slow  as  you 
like.  No  need  to  hurry.  Weddings  don't  come  every  day. 

"Was  it  very  funny,  chick?" 

"Oh,  wasn't  it!  But  didn't  mamma  look  lovely?  .  .  .  I've 
seen  it  twice  before,  you  know."  This  last  is  by  way  of  apology 
for  giving  the  conversation  a  wrench.  But  the  Major  didn't 


174  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

want  to  talk  over  the  wedding — seemed  to  prefer  "Charley's 
Aunt." 

"He  dresses  up  like  his  aunt,  doesn't  he?" 

"Oh  yes — it's  glorious  fun!  But  do  say  you  thought  mamma 
looked  lovely." 

"Of  course  she  did.  She  always  does.  But  had  the  others 
seen  'Charley's  Aunt'  before?" 

"Tishy  and  her  Bradshaw?     Oh  yes — at  least,  I  suppose  so." 

"And  Dr.  Vereker?" 

"Oh,  of  course  lie  had — twice  at  least.  The  times  we  saw 
it,  mother  and  I.  He  went  too.  .  .  .  We-e-e-ell,  there's  nothing 
in  that!"  (We  can  only  hope  again  our  spelling  conveys  the 
way  the  word  well  was  prolonged.) 

"Nothing  at  all.  Why  should  there  be?  What  a  nice  fellow 
Vereker  is !"  , 

"My  medical  adviser?  Oh,  lie's  all  right.  Never  mind  him; 
talk  about  mother." 

"They  must  be  very  nearly  at  Rheims  by  now."  This  is  mere 
obedience  to  orders  on  the  Major's  part.  He  feels  no  real  interest 
in  what  he  is  saying. 

"How  rum  it  must  be!"  says  Sally,  with  grave  consideration. 
And  the  Major's  "What?"  evolves  that  "it"  means  marrying 
a  second  husband. 

"Going  through  it  all  over  again  when  you've  done  it  once 
before,"  continues  this  young  philosopher.  The  Major  thinks 
of  asking  why  it  should  be  rummer  the  second  time  than  the 
first,  but  decides  not  to,  and  sips  his  toddy,  and  pats  the  hand 
that  is  under  his.  In  a  hazy,  fossil-like  way  he  perceives  that 
to  a  young  girl's  mind  the  "rumness"  of  a  second  husband  is 
exactly  proportionate  to  the  readiness  of  its  acceptance  of  the 
first.  "Unity  is  just  as  intrinsic  a  quality  of  a  first  husband  as 
the  colour  of  his  eyes  or  hair.  Moreover,  he  is  expected  to  out- 
live you.  Above  all,  he  is  perfectly  natural  and  a  matter  of 
course.  We  discern  in  all  this  a  sneaking  tribute  to  an  idea 
of  a  hereafter ;  but  the  Major  didn't  go  so  far  as  that. 

"She  looked  very  jolly  over  it,"  said  he,  retreating  on  gener- 
alities. "So  did  he." 

"Gaffer  Fenwick  ?  I  should  think  so  indeed !  Well  he  might !" 
Then,  after  a  moment's  consideration :  "He  looked  like  my  idea 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  175 

of  Sir  Richard  Grenville.  It's  only  an  idea.  I  forget  what 
he  did.  Elizabethan  johnny." 

"What  do  you  call  him?  Gaffer  Fenwick?  You're  a  nice, 
respectable  young  monkey!  Well,  he's  not  half  a  bad-looking 
fellow;  well  set  up."  But  none  of  this,  though  good  in  itself, 
is  what  Sally  sat  down  to  talk  about.  A  sudden  change  in  her 
manner,  a  new  earnestness,  makes  the  Major  stop  an  incipient 
yawn  he  is  utilising  as  an  exordium  to  a  hint  that  we  ought 
to  go  to  bed,  and  become  quite  wakeful  to  say:  "I  will  tell  you 
all  I  can,  my  child."  For  Sally  has  thrust  aside  talk  of  the 
day's  events,  making  no  more  of  the  wedding  ceremony  than  of 
"Charley's  Aunt,"  with:  "Why  did  my  father  and  mother  part? 
You  will  tell  me  now,  won't  you,  Major  dear  ?" 

Lying  was  necessary — inevitable.  But  he  would  minimise  it. 
There  was  always  the  resource  of  the  legal  fiction;  all  babes 
born  in  matrimony  are  legally  the  children  of  their  mother's 
husband,  quand-meme.  He  must  make  that  his  sheet-anchor. 

"You  know,  Sallykin,  your  father  and  mother  fell  out  before 
you  were  born.  And  the  first  time  I  saw  your  mother — why, 
bless  my  soul,  my  dear !  you  were  quite  a  growing  girl — yes,  able 
to  get  a  staff-officer's  thumb  in  your  mouth,  and  bite  it.  Indeed, 
you  did !  It  was  General  Pellew ;  they  say  he's  going  to  be  made 
a  peer."  The  Major  thinks  he  sees  his  way  out  of  the  fire  by 
sinking  catechism  in  reminiscences.  "I  can  recollect  it  all  as 
if  it  were  yesterday.  I  said  to  him,  'Who's  the  poor  pretty  little 
mother,  General  ?'  Because  he  knew  your  mother,  and  I  didn't. 
'Don't  you  know?'  said  he.  'She's  Mrs.  Graythorpe.'  I  asked 
about  her  husband,  but  Pellew  had  known  nothing  except  that 
there  was  a  row,  and  they  had  parted."  The  Major's  only  fiction 
here  was  that  he  substituted  the  name  Graythorpe  for  Palliser. 
"Next  time  I  saw  her  we  picked  up  some  acquaintance,  and  she 
asked  if  I  was  a  Lincolnshire  Lund,  because  her  father  always 
used  to  talk  of  how  he  went  to  Lund's  father's,  near  Crowland, 
when  he  was  a  boy.  'Stop  a  bit,'  said  I ;  'what  was  your  father's 
name?'  'Paul  Nightingale,'  says  she."  Observe  that  nothing 
was  untrue  in  this,  because  Rosey  always  spoke  and  thought  of 
Paul  Nightingale  as  her  father. 

"That  was  my  grandfather?"  Sally  was  intent  on  accumu- 
lating facts — would  save  up  analysis  till  after.  The  Major  took 


176  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

advantage  of  a  slight  choke  over  his  whiskey  to  mix  a  brief  nod 
into  it;  it  was  a  lie — but,  then,  he  himself  couldn't  have  said 
which  was  nod  and  which  was  choke;  so  it  hardly  counted.  He 
continued,  availing  himself  at  times  of  the  remains  of  the  choke 
to  help  him  to  slur  over  difficult  passages. 

"He  was  the  young  brother  of  a  sort  of  sweetheart  of  mine — 
a  silly  boyish  business — a  sort  of  calf-love.  She  married  and 
died.  But  he  was  her  great  pet,  a  favourite  younger  brother. 
One  keeps  a  recollection  of  this  sort  of  thing." — The  Major 
makes  a  parade  of  his  powers  of  oblivion,  and  his  failure  to  carry 
it  out  sits  well  upon  him. — "Of  course,  my  romantic  memories" 
— the  Major  smiles  derision  of  Love's  young  dream — "had  some- 
thing to  do  with  my  interest  in  your  mother,  but  I  hope  I  should 
have  done  the  same  if  there  had  been  no  such  thing.  Well,  the 
mere  fact  of  your  father's  behaviour  to  your  mother.  .  .  ."  He 
stopped  short,  with  misgivings  that  his  policy  of  talking  himself 
out  of  his  difficulties  was  not  such  a  very  safe  one,  after  all. 
Here  he  was,  getting  into  a  fresh  mess,  gratuitously! 

"Mamma  won't  talk  about  that,"  says  Sally,  "so  I  suppose 
I'm  not  to  ask  you"  The  Major  must  make  a  stand  upon  this, 
or  the  enemy  will  swarm  over  his  entrenchments.  Merely  look- 
ing at  his  watch  and  saying  it's  time  for  us  to  be  in  bed  will 
only  bring  a  moment's  respite.  There  is  nothing  for  it  but 
decision. 

"Sally  dear,  your  mother  does  not  tell  you  because  she  wishes 
the  whole  thing  buried  and  forgotten.  Her  wishes  must  be  my 
wishes.  .  .  ." 

He  would  like  to  stop  here — to  cut  it  short  at  that,  at  once 
and  for  good.  But  the  pathetic  anxiety  of  the  face  from  which 
all  memories  of  "Charley's  Aunt"  have  utterly  vanished  is  too 
much  for  his  fortitude;  and,  at  the  risk  of  more  semi-fibs,  he 
extenuates  the  sentence. 

"One  day  your  mother  may  tell  you  all  about  it.  She  is  the 
proper  person  to  tell  it — not  me.  Neither  do  I  think  I  know  it 
all  to  tell." 

"You  know  if  there  was  or  wasn't  a  divorce?"  The  Major 
feels  very  sorry  he  didn't  let  it  alone. 

"I'll  tell  you  that,  you  inquisitive  chick,  if  you'll  promise  on 
honour  not  to  ask  any  more  questions." 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  177 

"I  promise." 

"Honour  bright?" 

"Honest  Injun !" 

"That's  right.  Now  I'll  tell  you.  There  was  no  divorce,  but 
there  was  a  suit  for  a  divorce,  instituted  by  him.  He  failed  to 
make  out  a  case."  Note  that  the  expression  "your  father"  was 
carefully  excluded.  "She  was  absolutely  blameless — to  my  think- 
ing, at  least.  Now  that's  plenty  for  a  little  girl  to  know.  And 
it's  high  time  we  were  both  in  bed  and  asleep." 

He  kisses  the  grave,  sad  young  face  that  is  yearning  to  hear 
more,  but  is  too  honourable  to  break  its  compact.  "They'll  be 
at  Rheims  by  now,"  says  he,  to  lighten  off  the  conversation. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

SALLY'S  LARK.    AND  HOW  SHE  TOOK  HER  MEDICAL  ADVISER  INTO  HER 
CONFIDENCE  AFTER  DIVINE  SERVICE 

THOUGH  Sally  cried  herself  to  sleep  after  her  interview  with 
her  beloved  but  reticent  old  fossil,  nevertheless,  when  she  awoke 
next  morning  and  found  herself  mistress  of  the  house  and  the 
situation,  she  became  suddenly  alive  to  the  advantages  of  com- 
plete independence.  She  was  an  optimist  constitutionally ;  for  it 
is  optimism  to  decide  that  it  is  "rather  a  lark"  to  breakfast  by 
yourself  when  you  have  just  dried  the  tears  you  have  been 
shedding  over  the  loss  of  your  morning  companion.  Sally  came 
to  this  conclusion  as  she  poured  out  her  tea,  after  despatching 
his  toast  and  coffee  to  the  Major  in  his  own  room.  He  sometimes 
came  down  to  breakfast,  but  such  a  dissipation  as  yesterday  put 
it  out  of  the  question  on  this  particular  morning. 

The  lark  continued  an  unalloyed,  unqualified  lark  quite  to  the 
end  of  the  second  cup  of  tea,  when  it  seemed  to  undergo  a  slight 
clouding  over — a  something  we  should  rather  indicate  by  saying 
that  it  slowed  down  passing  through  a  station,  than  that  it  was 
modulated  into  a  minor  key.  Of  course,  we  are  handicapped  in 
our  metaphors  by  an  imperfect  understanding  of  the  exact  force 
of  the  word  "lark"  used  in  this  connexion. 

The  day  before  does  not  come  back  to  us  during  our  first  cup 
at  breakfast,  whether  it  be  tea  or  coffee.  A  happy  disposition 
lets  what  we  have  slept  on  sleep,  till  at  least  it  has  glanced  at  the 
weather,  and  knows  that  it  is  going  to  be  cooler,  some  rain. 
Then  memory  revives,  and  all  the  chill  inheritance  of  overnight. 
We  pick  up  the  thread  of  our  existence,  and  draw  our  finger  over 
the  last  knots,  and  then  go  on  where  we  left  off.  We  remember 
that  we  have  to  see  about  this,  and  we  mustn't  be  late  at  that, 
and  that  there's  an  order  got  to  be  made  out  for  the  stores. 
There  wasn't  in  Sally's  case,  certainly,  because  it  was  Sunday; 
but  there  was  tribulation  awaiting  her  as  soon  as  she  could  recol- 

178 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  1V9 

lect  her  overdue  analysis  of  the  Major's  concealed  facts.  She 
had  put  it  off  till  leisure  should  come ;  and  now  that  she  was  only 
looking  at  a  microcosm  of  the  garden  seen  through  the  window, 
and  reflected  upside  down  in  the  tea-urn,  she  had  surely  met  with 
leisure.  Her  mind  went  back  tentatively  on  the  points  of  the 
old  man's  reminiscences,  as  she  looked  at  her  own  thoughtful 
face  in  the  convex  of  the  urn  opposite,  nursed  in  two  miniature 
hands  whose  elbows  were  already  becoming  unreasonably  mag- 
nified, though  really  they  were  next  to  nothing  nearer. 

Just  to  think !  The  Major  had  actually  been  in  love  when  he 
was  young.  More  than  once  he  must  have  been,  because  Sally 
knew  he  was  a  widower.  She  touched  the  shiny  urn  with  her 
finger,  to  see  how  hideously  it  swelled  in  the  mirror.  You  know 
what  fun  that  is !  But  she  took  her  finger  back,  because  it  was 
too  hot,  though  off  the  boil. 

There  was  a  bluebottle  between  the  blind  and  the  window-pane, 
as  usual;  if  he  was  the  same  bluebottle  that  was  there  when  Fen- 
wick  was  first  brought  into  this  room,  he  had  learned  nothing 
and  forgotten  nothing,  like  the  old  regime  in  France.  He  only 
knew  how  to  butt  and  blunder  resonantly  at  the  glass;  but  he 
could  do  it  as  well  as  ever,  and  he  seemed  to  have  made  up  his 
mind  to  persevere.  Sally  listened  to  his  monotone,  and  watched 
her  image  in  the  urn. 

"I  wish  I  hadn't  promised  not  to  ask  more,"  she  thought  to 
herself.  "Anyhow,  Tishy's  wrong.  Nobody  ever  was  named 
Palliser — that's  flat !  And  if  there  was  a  divorce-suit  ever  so,  7 
don't  care!  .  .  ."  She  had  to  stop  thinking  for  a  moment,  to 
make  terms  with  the  cat,  who  otherwise  would  have  got  her  claws 
in  the  beautiful  white  damask,  and  ripped. 

"Besides,  if  my  precious  father  behaved  so  badly  to  mamma, 
how  could  it  be  her  fault?  I  don't  believe  in  mother  being  the 
least  wrong  in  anything,  so  ifs  no  use !"  This  last  filled  out  a 
response  to  an  imaginary  indictment  of  an  officious  Crown- 
Prosecutor.  "I  know  what  I  should  like!  I  should  like  to  get 
at  that  old  Scroope,  or  whatever  his  name  is,  and  get  it  all  out  of 
him.  I'd  give  him  a  piece  of  my  mind,  gossipy  old  humbug!" 
It  then  occurred  to  Sally  that  she  was  being  unfair.  No,  she 
wouldn't  castigate  old  Major  Roper  for  tattling,  and  at  the  same 
time  cross-examine  him  for  her  own  purposes.  It  would  be 


180  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

underhand.  But  it  would  be  very  easy,  if  she  could  get  at  him, 
to  make  him  talk  about  it.  She  rehearsed  ways  and  means  that 
might  be  employed  to  that  end.  For  instance,  nothing  more 
natural  than  to  recur  to  the  legend  of  how  she  bit  General  Pel- 
lew's  finger;  that  would  set  him  off!  She  recited  the  form  of 
speech  to  be  employed.  "Do  you  know,  Major  Roper^  I'm  told  I 
once  bit  a  staff-officer's  finger  off,"  etc.  Or  would  it  be  better 
not  to  approach  the  matter  with  circumspection,  but  go  straight 
to  the  point — "You  must  have  met  my  father,  Major  Roper, 
etc.,"  and  then  follow  on  with  explanations?  Oh  dear,  how  dif- 
ficult it  was  to  settle!  If  only  there  were  any  one  she  could 
trust  to  talk  to  about  it!  Eeally,  Tishy  was  quite  out  of  the 
question,  even  if  she  could  take  her  mind  off  her  Bradshaw  for 
five  minutes,  which  she  couldn't. 

"Of  course,  there's  Prosy,  if  you  come  to  that,"  was  the  con- 
clusion reached  at  the  end  of  a  long  avenue  of  consideration,  on 
each  side  of  which  referees  who  might  have  been  accepted,  but 
had  been  rejected,  were  supposed  to  be  left  to  their  disappoint- 
ment. "Only,  fancy  making  a  confidant  of  old  Prosy!  Why, 
he'd  feel  your  pulse  and  look  at  your  tongue,  just  as  likely  as 
not." 

But  Dr.  Vereker,  thus  dismissed  to  the  rejected  referees, 
seemed  not  to  care  for  their  companionship,  and  to  be  able  to 
come  back.  At  any  rate,  Miss  Sally  ended  up  a  long  cogitation 
with,  "I've  a  great  mind  to  go  and  talk  to  Prosy  about  it,  after 
all !  Perhaps  he  would  be  at  church." 

Now,  if  this  had  been  conversation  instead  of  soliloquy,  Sally's 
constitutional  frankness  would  have  entered  some  protest  against 
the  assumption  that  she  intended  to  go  to  church  as  a  matter  of 
course.  As  she  was  her  only  audience,  and  one  that  knew  all 
about  the  speaker  already,  she  slurred  a  little  over  the  fact  that 
her  decision  to  attend  church  was  influenced  by  a  belief  that 
probably  Dr.  Vereker  would  be  there.  If  she  chose,  she  should 
deceive  herself,  and  consult  nobody  else.  She  looked  at  her 
watch,  as  the  open-work  clock  with  the  punctual  ratchet-move- 
ment had  stopped,  and  was  surprised  to  find  how  late  she  was. 
"Comes  of  weddings!"  was  her  comment.  However,  she  had 
time  to  wind  the  clock  up  and  set  it  going  when  she  came  down- 
stairs again  ready  for  church. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  181 

St.  Satisfax's  Revd.  Vicar  prided  himself  on  the  appropriate- 
ness of  his  sermons;  so,  this  time,  as  he  had  yesterday  united  a 
distinguished  and  beautiful  widow  to  her  second  husband,  he 
selected  for  his  text  the  parable  of  the  widow's  son.  True,  Mrs. 
Nightingale  had  no  son,  and  her  daughter  wasn't  dead,  and  there 
is  not  a  hint  in  the  text  that  the  widow  of  Nain  married  again, 
or  had  any  intention  of  doing  so.  On  the  other  hand,  the  latter 
had  no  daughter,  presumably,  and  her  son  was  alive.  And  as  to 
marrying  again,  why,  there  was  the  very  gist  and  essence  of  the 
comparison,  if  you  chose  to  accept  the  cryptic  suggestions  of  the 
Revd.  Vicar,  and  make  it  for  yourself.  The  lesson  we  had  to 
learn  from  this  parable  was  obviously  that  nowadays  widows, 
however  good  and  solvent,  were  mundane,  and  married  again; 
while  in  the  City  of  Nain,  nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  they 
(being  in  Holy  Writ)  were,  as  it  were,  Sundane,  and  didn't. 
The  delicacy  of  the  reverend  suggestion  to  this  effect,  without 
formal  indictment  of  any  offender,  passes  our  powers  of  descrip- 
tion. So  subtle  was  it  that  Sally  felt  she  had  nothing  to  lay 
hold  of. 

Nevertheless,  when  the  last  of  the  group  that  included  herself 
and  the  doctor,  and  walked  from  St.  Satisfax  towards  its  atomic 
elements'  respective  homes,  had  vanished  down  her  turning — it 
was  the  large  Miss  Baker,  as  a  matter  of  fact — then  Sally  re- 
ferred to  the  sermon  and  its  text,  jumping  straight  to  her  own 
indictment  of  the  preacher. 

"Why  shouldn't  my  mother  marry  again  if  she  likes,  Dr. 
Vereker — especially  Mr.  Fenwick?" 

"Don't  you  think  it  possible,  Miss  Sally,  that  the  parson  didn't 
mean  anything  about  your  mother — didn't  connect  her  in  his 
mind  with " 

"With  the  real  widow  in  the  parable  ?  Oh  yes,  he  did,  though ! 
As  if  mother  was  a  real  widow !" 

Now,  the  doctor  had  heard  from  his  own  widowed  mother  the 
heads  of  the  gossip  about  the  supposed  divorce.  He  had  pooh- 
poohed  this  as  mere  tattle — asked  for  evidence,  and  so  on.  But, 
having  heard  it,  it  was  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  put  a 
false  interpretation  on  Sally's  last  words.  They  seemed  to.  ac- 
knowledge the  divorce  story.  He  felt  very  unsafe,  and  could 
only  repeat  them  half  interrogatively,  "As  if  M*rs.  Nightingale 


182  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

was  a  real  widow  ?"  But  with  the  effect  that  Sally  immediately 
saw  clean  through  him,  and  knew  what  was  passing  in  his 
mind. 

"Oh  no,  Dr.  Vereker !  I  wasn't  thinking  of  that"  She  faced 
round  to  disclaim  it,  turning  her  eyes  full  on  the  embarrassed 
doctor.  Then  she  suddenly  remembered  it  was  the  very  thing 
she  had  come  out  to  talk  about,  and  felt  ashamed.  The  slightest 
possible  flush,  that  framed  up  her  smile  and  her  eyes,  made  her 
at  this  moment  a  bad  companion  for  a  man  who  was  under  an 
obligation  not  to  fall  in  love  with  her — for  that  was  how  the 
doctor  thought  of  himself.  Sally  continued :  "But  I  wish  I  had 
been,  because  it  would  have  done  instead." 

The  young  man  was  really,  at  the  moment,  conscious  of  very 
little  beyond  the  girl's  fascination,  and  his  reply,  "Instead  of 
what?"  was  a  little  mechanical. 

"I  mean  instead  of  explaining  what  I  wanted  you  to  talk 
about  special.  But  when  I  spoke,  you  know,  just  now  about  a 
real  widow,  I  meant  a  real  widow  that — that  wids — you  know 
what  I  mean.  Don't  laugh !" 

"All  right,  Miss  Sally.  I'm  serious."  The  doctor  composes  a 
professional  face.  "I  know  perfectly  what  you  mean."  He 
waits  for  the  next  symptom. 

"Now,  mother  never  did  wid,  and  never  will  wid,  I  hope. 
She  hasn't  got  it  in  her  bones."  And  then  Miss  Sally  stopped 
short,  and  a  little  extra  flush  got  time  to  assert  itself.  But  a 
moment  after  she  rushed  the  position  without  a  single  casualty. 
"I  want  to  know  what  people  say,  when  I'm  not  there,  about 
who  my  father  was,  and  why  he  and  mother  parted.  And  I'm 
sure  you  can  tell  me,  and  will.  It's  no  use  asking  Tishy  Wilson 
any  more  about  it."  Observe  the  transparency  of  this  young 
lady.  She  wasn't  going  to  conceal  that  she  had  talked  of  it  to 
Tishy  Wilson — not  she! 

Dr.  Vereker,  usually  reserved,  but  candid  withal,  becomes, 
under  the  infection  of  Sally's  frankness,  candid  and  unreserved. 

"People  haven't  talked  any  nonsense  to  me;  I  never  let  them. 
But  my  mother  has  repeated  to  me  things  that  have  been  said  to 
her.  ...  She  doesn't  like  gossip,  you  know !"  And  the  young 
man  really  believes  what  he  says.  Because  his  mother  has  been 
his  religion — just  consider ! 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  183 

"I  know  she  doesn't."  Sally  analyses  the  position,  and  de- 
cides on  the  fib  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  She  is  going  to 
make  a  son  break  a  promise  to  his  mother,  and  she  knows  it. 
So  she  gives  him  this  as  a  set-off.  "But  people  will  talk  to  her, 
of  course !  Shall  I  get  her  to  tell  me  f" 

The  doctor  considers,  then  answers : 

"I  think,  Miss  Sally — unless  you  particularly  wish  the  con- 
trary— I  would  almost  rather  not.  Mother  believed  the  story  all 
nonsense,  and  was  very  much  concerned  that  people  should  re- 
peat such  silly  tattle.  She  would  be  very  unhappy  if  she  thought 
it  had  come  to  your  ears  through  her  repeating  it  in  confidence 
to  me." 

"Perhaps  you  would  really  rather  not  tell  it,  doctor."  Dis- 
appointment is  on  Sally's  face. 

"No.  As  you  have  asked  me,  I  prefer  to  tell  it.  Only  you 
won't  speak  to  her  at  all,  will  you  ?" 

"I  really  won't.    You  may  trust  me." 

"Well,  then,  it's  really  very  little  when  all's  said  and  done. 
Somebody  told  her — I  won't  say  who  it  was — you  don't  mind?" 
Sally  didn't — "told  her  that  your  father  behaved  very  badly  to 
your  mother,  and  that  he  tried  to  get  a  divorce  from  her  and 
failed,  and  that  after  that  they  parted  by  mutual  consent,  and 
he  went  away  to  New  Zealand  when  you  were  quite  a  small 
baby." 

"Was  that  quite  all  ?" 

"That  was  all  mother  told  me.  I'm  afraid  I  rather  cut  her 
short  by  saying  I  thought  it  was  most  likely  all  unfounded 
gossip.  Was  any  of  it  true?  But  I've  no  right  to  ask  ques- 
tions. .  .  ." 

"Oh,  Dr.  Vereker — no!  That  wouldn't  be  fair.  Of  course, 
when  you  are  asked  to  tell,  you  are  allowed  to  ask.  Every  one 
always  is.  Besides,  I  don't  mind  a  bit  telling  you  all  I  know. 
Only  you'll  be  surprised  at  my  knowing  so  very  little." 

And  then  Sally,  with  a  clearness  that  did  her  credit,  repeated 
all  the  information  she  had  had — all  that  her  mother  had  told 
her — what  she  had  extracted  from  Colonel  Lund  with  difficulty 
— and  lastly,  but  as  the  merest  untrustworthy  hearsay,  the  story 
that  had  reached  her  through  her  friend  Laetitia.  In  fact,  she 
went  the  length  of  discrediting  it  altogether,  as  "Only  Goody 


184  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Wilson,  when  all  was  said  and  done."  The  fact  that  her  mother 
had  told  her  so  little  never  seemed  to  strike  her  as  strange  or 
to  call  for  comment.  It  was  right  that  it  should  be  so,  because 
it  was  in  her  mother's  jurisdiction,  and  what  she  did  or  said  was 
right.  Cannot  most  of  us  recall  things  unquestioned  in  our 
youth  that  we  have  marvelled  at  our  passive  acceptance  of  since  ? 
Sally's  mother's  silence  about  her  father  was  ingrained  in  the 
nature  of  things,  and  she  had  never  speculated  about  him  so 
much  as  she  had  done  since  Professor  Wilson's  remark  across 
the  table  had  led  to  Laetitia's  tale  about  Major  Roper  and  the 
tiger-shooting. 

Sally's  version  of  her  mother's  history  was  comforting  to  her 
hearer  on  one  point:  it  contained  no  hint  that  the  fugitive  to 
Australia  was  not  her  father.  Now,  the  fact  is  that  the  doctor, 
in  repeating  what  his  mother  had  said  to  him,  had  passed  over 
some  speculations  of  hers  about  Sally's  paternity.  No  wonder 
the  two  records  confirmed  each  other,  seeing  that  the  point  sup- 
pressed by  the  doctor  had  been  studiously  kept  from  Sally  by 
all  her  informants.  He,  for  his  part,  felt  that  the  bargain  did 
not  include  speculations  of  his  mother's. 

"Well,  doctor?"  Thus  Sally,  at  the  end  of  a  very  short  pause 
for  consideration.  Vereker  does  not  seem  to  need  a  longer  one. 
"You  mean,  Miss  Sally,  do  I  think  people  talk  spitefully  of  Mrs. 
Nightingale — I  suppose  I  must  say  Mrs.  Fenwick  now — behind 
her  back  ?  Isn't  that  the  sort  of  question  ?"  Sally,  for  response, 
looks  a  little  short  nod  at  the  doctor,  instead  of  words.  He  goes 
on:  "Well,  then,  I  don't  think  they  do.  And  I  don't  think  you 
need  fret  about  it.  People  will  talk  about  the  story  of  the 
quarrel  and  separation,  of  course,  but  it  doesn't  follow  that  any- 
thing will  be  said  against  either  your  father  or  mother.  Things 
of  this  sort  happen  every  day,  with  fault  on  neither  side." 

"You  think  it  was  just  a  row  ?" 

"Most  likely.  The  only  thing  that  seems  to  me  to  tell  against 
your  father  is  what  you  said  your  mother  said  just  now — some- 
thing about  having  forgiven  him  for  your  sake."  Sally  repeats 
her  nod.  "Well,  even  that  might  be  accounted  for  by  supposing 
that  he  had  been  very  hot-tempered  and  unjust  and  violent.  He 
was  quite  a  young  chap,  you  see.  .  .  ." 

"You  mean  like — like  supposing  Jeremiah  were  to  go  into  a 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  185 

tantrum  now  and  flare  up — he  does  sometimes — and  then  they 
were  both  to  miff  off  ?" 

"Something  of  that  sort.  Very  likely  they  would  have  under- 
stood each  other  better  if  they  had  been  a  little  older  and 
wiser.  .  .  ." 

"Like  us?"  says  Sally,  with  perfect  unconsciousness  of  one 
aspect  of  the  remark.  "And  then  they  might  have  gone  on  till 
now."  Regret  that  they  did  not  do  so  is  on  her  face,  till  she 
suddenly  sees  a  new  contingency.  "But  then  we  shouldn't  have 
had  Jeremiah.  I  shouldn't  have  fancied  that  at  all."  She 
doesn't  really  see  why  the  doctor  smiled  at  this,  but  adds  a  grave 
explanation :  "I  mean,  if  I'd  tried  both,  I  might  have  preferred 
my  step."  But  there  they  were  at  Glenmoira  Road,  and  must 
say  good-bye  till  Brahms  on  Thursday. 

Only,  the  doctor  did  (as  a  matter  of  history)  walk  down  that 
road  with  Sally  as  far  as  the  gate  with  Krakatoa  Villa  on  it, 
and  got  home  late  for  his  mid-day  Sunday  dinner,  and  was  told 
by  his  mother  that  he  might  have  considered  the  servants.  She 
herself  was,  meekly,  out  of  it. 


CHAPTEK  XVIII 

OF    A    SWIMMING-BATH,    UET    PRJETEREA   EXIGUUM" 

THIS  was  the  best  of  the  swimming-bath  season,  and  Sally 
rarely  passed  a  day  without  a  turn  at  her  favourite  exercise.  If 
her  swimming-bath  had  been  open  on  Sunday,  she  wouldn't  have 
gone  to  church  yesterday,  not  even  to  meet  Dr.  Vereker  and  talk 
about  her  father  to  him.  As  it  was,  she  very  nearly  came  away 
from  Krakatoa  Villa  next  morning  without  waiting  to  see  the 
letter  from  Rheims,  the  post  being  late.  Why  is  everything  late 
on  Monday? 

However,  she  was  intercepted  by  the  postman  and  the  foreign 
postmark — a  dozen  words  on  a  card,  but  she  read  them  several 
times,  and  put  the  card  in  her  pocket  to  show  to  Lsetitia  Wilson. 
She  was  pretty  sure  to  be  there.  And  so  she  was,  and  by  ten 
o'clock  had  seen  the  card  and  exhausted  its  contents.  And  by 
five-minutes-past  Sally  was  impending  over  the  sparkling  water 
of  Paddington  swimming-bath.  She  was  dry  so  far,  and  her 
blue  bathing-dress  could  stick  out.  But  it  was  not  to  be  for 
long,  for  her  two  hands  went  together  after  a  preliminary  stretch 
to  make  a  cutwater,  and  down  went  Sally  with  a  mighty  splash 
into  the  deep — into  the  moderately  deep,  suppose  we  say — at 
any  rate  into  ten  thousand  gallons  of  properly  filtered  Thames 
water,  which  had  been  (no  doubt)  sterilised  and  disinfected  and 
examined  under  powerful  microscopes  until  it  hadn't  got  a 
microbe  to  bless  itself  with.  When  she  came  up  at  the  other 
end,  to  taunt  Laetitia  Wilson  with  her  cowardice  for  not  doing 
likewise,  she  was  a  smooth  and  shiny  Sally,  like  a  deep  blue 
seal  above  water,  but  with  modifications  towards  floating  fins 
below. 

"Now  tell  me  about  the  row  last  night,"  said  she,  after  re- 
proaches met  by  Latitia  with,  "It's  no  use,  dear.  I  wasn't  born 
a  herring  like  you." 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  187 

Sally  must  have  heard  there  had  been  some  family  dissen- 
sion at  Ladbroke  Grove  Road  as  she  came  into  the  bath  with 
Laetitia,  whom  she  met  at  the  towel-yielding  guichet.  However, 
the  latter  wasn't  disposed  to  discuss  family  matters  in  an  open 
swimming-bath  in  the  hearing  of  the  custodian,  to  say  nothing 
of  possible  concealed  dressers  in  horse-boxes  alongside. 

"My  dear  child,  is  this  the  place  to  talk  about  things  in? 
Do  be  a  little  discreet  sometimes/'  is  her  reply  to  Sally's  re- 
quest. 

"There's  nobody  here  but  us.  Cut  away,  Tishy!"  But  Miss 
Wilson  will  not  talk  about  the  row,  whatever  it  was,  with  the 
chance  of  goodness-knows-who  coming  in  any  minute.  For  one 
thing,  she  wants  to  enjoy  the  telling,  and  not  to  be  interrupted. 
So  it  is  deferred  to  a  more  fitting  season  and  place. 

Goodness-knows-who  (presumably)  came  in  in  the  shape  of 
Henriette  Prince,  who  was,  after  Sally,  the  next  best  swimmer 
in  the  Ladies'  Club.  After  a  short  race  or  two,  won  by  Sally 
in  spite  of  heavy  odds  against  her,  the  two  girls  turned  their 
attention  to  the  art  of  rescuing  drowning  persons.  A  very  amus- 
ing game  was  played,  each  alternately  committing  suicide  off 
the  edge  of  the  bath  while  the  other  took  a  header  to  her  rescue 
from  the  elevation  which  we  just  now  saw  Sally  on  ready  to 
plunge.  The  rules  were  clear.  The  suicide  was  to  do  her  best 
to  drag  the  rescuer  under  water  and  to  avoid  being  dragged 
into  the  shallow  end  of  the  bath. 

"I  know  you'll  both  get  drowned  if  you  play  those  tricks," 
says  Laetitia  nervously. 

"No — we  shan't"  vociferates  Sally  from  the  brink.  "Now, 
are  you  ready,  Miss  Prince  ?  Very  well.  Tishy,  count  ten !" 

"Oh,  I  wish  you  wouldn't!  One — two — three  .  .  ."  And 
Laetitia,  all  whose  dignity  and  force  of  character  go  when  she 
is  bathing,  does  as  she  is  bidden,  and,  at  the  "ten,"  the  suicide, 
with  a  cry  of  despair,  hurls  herself  madly  into  the  water,  and 
the  rescuer  flies  to  her  succour.  What  she  has  to  do  is  to  grasp 
the  struggling  quarry  by  the  elbows  from  behind  and  keep  out 
of  the  reach  of  her  hands.  But  the  tussle  that  ensues  in  the 
water  is  a  short  one,  for  the  rescuer  is  no  match  for  the  supposed 
involuntary  resistance  of  the  convulsed  suicide,  who  eludes  the 
coming  grasp  of  her  hand  with  eel-like  dexterity,  and  has  her 


188  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

round  the  waist  and  drags  her  under  water  in  a  couple  of 
seconds. 

"There  now!"  says  Sally  triumphantly,  as  they  stand  splut- 
tering and  choking  in  the  shallow  water  to  recover  breath. 
"Didn't  I  do  that  beautifully?" 

"Well,  but  anybody  could  like  that.  When  real  people  are 
drowning  they  don't  do  it  like  that."  Miss  Prince  is  rather  rue- 
ful about  it.  But  Sally  is  exultant. 

"Oh,  don't  they!"  she  says.  "They're  worse  when  it's  real 
drowning — heaps  worse!"  Whereon  both  the  other  girls  affirm 
in  chorus  that  then  nobody  can  be  saved  without  the  Humane 
Society's  drags — unless,  indeed,  you  wait  till  they  are  insensible. 

"Can't  they?"  says  Sally,  with  supreme  contempt.  "We  were 
both  of  use  drowned  that  time  fair.  But  now  you  go  and  drown 
yourself,  and  see  if  I  don't  fish  you  out.  Fire  away !" 

They  fire  away,  and  the  determined  suicide  plays  her  part 
with  spirit.  But  she  is  no  match  for  the  submarine  tactics  of 
her  rescuer,  who  seems  just  as  happy  under  water  as  on  land, 
and  rising  under  her  at  the  end  of  a  resolute  deep  plunge,  makes 
a  successful  grasp  at  the  head  of  her  prey,  who  is  ignominiously 
towed  into  safety,  doing  her  best  to  drown  herself  to  the  last. 

This  little  incident  is  so  amusing  and  exciting  that  the  three 
young  ladies,  who  walk  home  together  westward,  can  talk  of 
nothing  but  rescues  all  the  way  to  Netting  Hill.  Then  Miss 
Henriette  Prince  goes  on  alone,  and  as  Laetitia  and  Sally  turn 
off  the  main  road  towards  the  home  of  the  former,  the  latter 
says :  "Now  tell  me  about  the  row." 

It  wasn't  exactly  a  row,  it  seemed;  but  it  came  to  the  same 
thing.  Mamma  had  made  up  her  mind  to  be  detestable  about 
Julius  Bradshaw — that  was  the  long  and  short  of  it.  And  Sally 
knew,  said  Laetitia,  how  detestable  mamma  could  be  when  she 
tried.  If  it  wasn't  for  papa,  Julius  Bradshaw  would  simply 
be  said  not-at-home  to,  and  have  to  leave  a  card  and  go.  But 
she  was  going  to  go  her  own  way  and  not  be  dictated  to,  ma- 
ternal authority  or  no.  Perhaps  the  speaker  felt  that  Sally 
was  mentally  taking  exception  to  universal  revolt,  for  a  flavour 
of  excuse  or  justification  crept  in. 

"Well! — I  can't  help  it.  I  am  twenty-four,  after  all.  I 
shouldn't  say  so  if  there  was  anything  against  him.  But  no 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  189 

man  can  be  blamed  for  a  cruel  conjunction  of  circumstances, 
and  mamma  may  say  what  she  likes,  but  being  in  the  office  really 
makes  all  the  difference.  And  look  how  he's  supporting  his 
mother  and  sister,  who  were  left  badly  off.  I  call  it  noble." 

"But  you  know,  Tishy,  you  did  say  the  negro  couldn't  change 
his  spots,  and  that  I  must  admit  there  were  such  things  as 
social  distinctions — and  you  talked  about  sweeps  and  dustmen, 
you  know  you  did.  Come,  Tishy,  did  you,  or  didn't  you  ?" 

"If  I  said  anything  it  was  leopard,  not  negro.  And  as  for 
sweeps  and  dustmen,  they  were  merely  parallel  cases  used  as 
illustrations;  and  I  don't  think  I  deserve  to  have  them  raked 
up.  .  .  ."  Miss  Wilson  is  rather  injured  over  this  grievance, 
and  Sally  appeases  her.  "She  shan't  have  them  raked  up,  she 
shan't !  But  what  was  this  row  really  about,  that's  the  point  ? 
It  was  yesterday  morning,  wasn't  it?" 

"How  often  am  I  to  tell  you,  Sally  dear,  that  there  was  really 
no  row,  properly  speaking.  If  you  were  to  say  there  had  been 
comments  at  breakfast  yesterday,  then  recrimination  overnight, 
and  a  stiffness  at  breakfast  again  this  morning,  you  would  be 
doing  more  than  justice  to  it.  You'll  see  now  if  mamma  isn't 
cold  and  firm  and  disinherity  and  generally  detestable  about  it." 

"But  what  was  it?    That's  what  /  want  to  know." 

"My  dear — it  was — absolutely  nothing!  Why  should  it  be 
stranger  for  Mr.  Bradshaw  to  drive  me  home  to  save  two  hansoms 
than  for  you  and  Dr.  Vereker  and  the  Voyseys  to  go  all  in  one 
growler  ?" 

"Because  the  Voyseys  live  just  round  the  corner,  quite  close. 
It  came  to  three  shillings  because  it's  outside  the  radius."  The 
irrelevancy  of  this  detail  gives  Laetitia  an  excuse  for  waiving 
the  cab-question,  on  which  her  position  is  untenable.  She  di- 
lutes it  with  extraneous  matter,  and  it  is  lost  sight  of. 

"It  doesn't  matter  whether  it's  cabs  or  what  it  is.  Mamma's 
just  the  same  about  everything.  Even  walking  up  Holland  Park 
Lane  after  the  concert  at  Kensington  Town  Hall.  I  am  sure 
if  ever  anything  was  reasonable,  that  was."  She  pauses  for 
confirmation — is,  in  fact,  wavering  about  the  correctness  of  her 
own  position,  and  weakly  seeking  reassurance.  She  is  made  hap- 
pier by  a  nod  of  assent  from  Miss  Sally.  "Awfully  reasona- 
ble!" is  the  verdict  of  the  latter.  Whatever  there  is  lacking 


190  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

seriousness  in  the  judge's  face  is  too  slight  to  call  for  notice— 
a  mere  twinkle  to  be  ignored.  Very  little  self-deception  is 
necessary,  and  in  this  department  success  is  invariable. 

"I  knew  you  would  say  so,  dear,"  Tishy  continues.  "And 
I'm  sure  you  would  about  the  other  things  too  .  .  .  well,  I  was 
thinking  about  tea  in  Kensington  Gardens  on  Sunday.  We  have 
both  of  us  a  perfect  right  to  have  tea  independently,  and  the 
only  question  is  about  separate  tables." 

"Suppose  I  come — to  make  it  square." 

"Suppose  you  do,  dear."    And  the  proposal  is  a  relief  evidently. 

A  very  slight  insight  into  the  little  drama  that  is  going  on 
at  Ladbroke  Grove  Eoad  is  all  that  is  wanted  for  the  purposes 
of  this  story.  The  foregoing  dialogue,  ending  at  the  point  at 
which  the  two  young  women  disappear  into  the  door  of  ISTo.  287, 
will  be  sufficient  to  give  a  fairly  clear  idea  of  the  plot  of  the 
performance,  and  to  point  to  its  denouement.  The  exact  details 
may  unfold  themselves  as  the  story  proceeds.  The  usual  thing 
is  a  stand-up  fight  over  the  love-affair,  both  parties  to  which 
have  made  up  their  minds — becoming  more  and  more  obdurate 
as  they  encounter  opposition  from  without — followed  by  recon- 
ciliations more  or  less  real.  Let  us  hope  for  the  former  in  the 
present  case,  and  that  Miss  Wilson  and  Mr.  Bradshaw's  lot  may 
not  be  crossed  by  one  of  those  developments  of  strange  inex- 
plicable fury  which  so  often  break  out  in  families  over  the 
schemes  of  two  young  people  to  do  precisely  what  their  parents 
did  before  them;  and  most  ungovernably,  sometimes,  on  the 
part  of  members  who  have  absolutely  no  suggestion  to  make  of 
any  alternative  scheme  for  the  happiness  of  either. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

HOW  FENWICK  KNEW  ALL  ABOUT  THE  MASS.      AND  HOW  BARON  KREUTZ- 
KAMMER  RECOGNISED  MR.  HARRISSON.      LONDON  AGAIN  ! 

"WHY  do  they  call  it  the  messe  des  paresseux?"  The  ques- 
tion must  have  been  asked  just  as  Sally  looked  at  her  watch 
because  she  saw  the  clock  had  stopped.  But  the  nave  of  the 
Cathedral  of  Rheims  was  very  unlike  that  of  St.  Satisfax  as  the 
bride  and  bridegroom  lingered  in  out  of  the  sunshine,  and  the 
former  took  the  unwarrantable  liberty,  for  a  heretic,  of  cross- 
ing herself  from  the  Holy  Water  at  the  foot  of  the  column  near 
the  door.  But  she  made  up  for  it  by  the  amount  of  sous  she 
gave  to  the  old  blind  woman,  who  must  have  been  knitting  there 
since  the  days  of  Napoleon  at  least,  if  she  began  in  her  teens. 

"You  haven't  done  it  right,  dearest.  I  knew  you  wouldn't. 
Look  here."  And  Fenwick  crosses  himself  secundum  artem, 
dipping  his  finger  first  to  make  it  valid. 

"But  how  came  you  to  know?"  His  wife  does  not  say  this; 
she  only  thinks  it.  And  how  came  he  to  know  about  the  messe 
des  paresseux?  She  repeats  her  question  aloud. 

"Because  the  lazy  people  don't  come  to  Mass  till  ten,"  he 
replies.  They  are  talking  under  their  breath,  as  English  folk  do 
in  foreign  churches,  heedless  of  the  loud  gabble  and  resonant 
results  of  too  much  snuff  on  the  part  of  ecclesiastics  off  duty. 
Their  own  salvation  has  been  cultivated  under  a  list  slipper, 
cocoanut  matting,  secretive  pew-opener  policy;  and  if  they  are 
new  to  it  all,  they  are  shocked  to  see  the  snuff  taken  over  the 
heads  and  wooden  sabots  of  the  devout  country-folk,  whose 
ancestors  knelt  on  the  same  hard  stone  centuries  ago,  and 
prayed  for  great  harvests  that  never  came,  and  to  avert  lean  years 
that  very  often  did.  The  Anglican  cannot  understand  the  real 
aboriginal  Papist.  Sally's  mother  was  puzzled  when  she  saw 
an  old,  old  kneeling  figure,  toothless  and  parchment-skinned, 
on  whose  rosary  a  pinch  of  snuff  ut  supra  descended,  shake  it 

191 


192  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

off  the  bead  in  evidence,  and  get  on  to  the  next  Ave,  even  as  one 
who  has  business  before  her — so  many  pounds  of  oakum  to  pick, 
so  many  bushels  of  peas  to  shell.  It  was  a  reality  to  her;  and 
there  was  the  Blessed  Virgin  herself,  a  visible  certainty,  who 
would  see  to  the  recognition  of  it  at  headquarters. 

Fenwick  passed  up  the  aisle,  dreamily  happy  in  the  smell 
of  the  incense,  beside  his  bride  of  yesterday's  making — she 
intensely  happy  too,  but  in  another  way,  for  was  not  her  bride- 
groom of  yesterday  her  husband  of  twenty  years  ago — cruelly 
wrenched  away,  but  her  husband  for  all  that.  Still,  there  was 
always  that  little  rift  within  the  lute  that  made  the  music — pray 
Heaven  not  to  widen!  Always  that  thought! — that  he  might 
recollect.  How  could  he  remember  the  messe  des  paresseux, 
and  keep  his  mind  a  blank  about  how  he  came  to  know  of  it? 
It  was  the  first  discomfort  that  had  crossed  her  married  mind — 
put  it  away! 

It  was  easy  to  put  it  all  away  and  forget  it  in  the  hush  and 
gloom  of  the  great  church,  filled  with  the  strange  intonation 
from  Heaven-knows-where  —  some  side-chapel  unseen  —  of  a 
Psalm  it  would  have  puzzled  David  to  be  told  was  his,  and  a 
scented  vapour  Solomon  would  have  known  at  once;  for  neither 
myrrh  nor  frankincense  have  changed  one  whit  since  his  day. 
It  was  easy  enough  so  long  as  both  sat  listening  to  Gloria  in 
excelsis  Deo,  et  in  terra  pax.  Carried  nem.  con.  by  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  Creeds.  But  when  the  little  bobs  and  tokens  and 
skirt-adjustments  of  the  fat  priest  and  his  handsome  abettor 
(a  young  fellow  some  girl  might  have  been  the  wife  of,  with  ad- 
vantage to  both)  came  to  a  pause,  and  the  congregation  were  to 
be  taken  into  confidence,  how  came  Gerry  to  know  beforehand 
what  the  fat  one  was  going  to  say,  with  that  stupendous  voice 
of  his  ? 

"Hoc  est  corpus  meum,  et  hie  est  calix  sanguinis  mei.  We 
all  kneel,  I  think."  Thus  the  bridegroom  under  his  breath. 
And  his  companion  heard,  almost  with  a  shudder,  the  selfsame 
words  from  the  priest,  as  the  kneeling  of  the  congregation  sub- 
sided. 

"Oh,  Gerry — darling  fellow!  How  can  you  know  that,  and 
not  know  .  .  ." 

"How  I  came  by  it?    It's  very  funny,  but  I  can't,  and  that's 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  193 

the  truth.  I  don't  feel  as  if  I  ever  could  know,  what's  more. 
But  it  all  seems  a  matter  of  course." 

"Perhaps  you're  a  Catholic  all  the  while,  without  knowing 
it?" 

"Perhaps  I  am.  But  I  should  like  to  know,  because  of  going 
to  the  other  place  with  you.  I  shouldn't  care  about  purgatory 
without  you,  Rosey  dearest.  No — not  even  with  a  reversionary 
interest  in  heaven." 

And  then  the  plot  thickened  at  the  altar,  and  the  odour  of 
myrrh  and  frankincense,  and  little  bells  rang  to  a  climax,  and 
the  handsome  young  priest,  let  us  hope,  felt  he  had  got  value  for 
the  loss  of  that  hypothetical  girl. 


That  little  incident  in  the  great  church  at  Eheims  was  the  first 
anxiety  of  Rosalind  Fenwick's  married  life — the  first  resumption 
of  the  conditions  she  had  been  so  often  unnerved  by  during  the 
period  of  their  betrothal.  She  was  destined  to  be  crossed  by 
many  such.  But  she  was,  as  we  have  said,  a  strong  woman, 
and  had  made  up  her  mind  to  take  these  anxieties  as  part  of  the 
day's  work — a  charge  upon  her  happiness  that  had  to  be  paid. 
It  was  a  great  consolation  to  her  that  she  could  speak  to  her 
husband  about  the  tension  caused  by  her  misgivings  without 
assigning  any  special  reasons  for  anxiety  that  would  not  be  his 
as  much  as  hers.  She  had  to  show  uneasiness  in  order  to  get 
the  relief  his  sympathy  gave  her;  but  there  were  unknown 
possibilities  in  the  Bush  enough  to  warrant  it  without  going  out- 
side what  was  known  to  both.  No  need  at  all  that  he  should 
know  of  her  separate  unseen  burden,  for  that ! 

But  some  of  the  jolts  on  the  road,  as  we  might  call  them, 
were  to  be  sore  trials  to  Rosalind.  One  came  in  the  fourth  week 
of  their  honeymoon,  and  quite  spoiled  for  her  the  last  three 
days  of  her  holiday.  However,  Fenwick  himself  laughed  about 
it — that  was  one  comfort. 

It  was  at  Sonnenberg.  You  know  the  Great  Hotel,  or  Pen- 
sion, near  the  Seelisberg,  that  looks  down  on  Lucerne  Lake, 
straight  over  to  where  Tell  shot  the  arrow?  If  you  do  not,  it 
does  not  matter.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fenwick  had  never  been  there 
before,  and  have  never  been  there  since.  And  what  happened 


194  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

might  just  as  easily  have  happened  anywhere  else.  But  it  was 
there,  as  a  matter  of  fact;  and  if  you  know  the  place,  you  will 
be  able  to  imagine  the  two  of  them  leaning  on  the  parapet  of 
the  terrace  that  overlooks  the  lake,  watching  the  steamer  from 
Lucerne  creeping  slowly  to  the  landing-place  at  the  head  of  a 
white  comet  it  has  churned  the  indescribable  blue  of  the  lake  to, 
and  discussing  whether  it  is  nearest  to  Oriental  sapphire  or 
to  green  jasper  at  its  bluest. 

Rosalind  had  got  used  to  continual  wonderment  as  to  when 
and  where  Fenwick  had  come  to  know  so  well  this  thing  and  that 
thing  he  spoke  of  so  familiarly;  so  she  passed  by  the  strange 
positiveness  of  his  speech  about  the  shades  of  jasper,  the  scarcity 
of  really  blue  examples,  and  his  verdict  that  the  bluest  possible 
one  would  be  just  the  colour  of  that  water  below  them.  She 
was  not  going  to  ask  him  how  he  came  to  be  so  mighty  wise 
about  chalcedony  and  chrysoprase  and  sardonyx,  about  which 
she  herself  either  never  knew  or  had  forgotten.  She  took  it  all 
as  a  matter  of  course,  and  asked  if  the  Baron's  cigar  was  a  good 
one. 

"Magnificent!"  Fenwick  replied,  puffing  at  it.  "How  shall 
we  return  his  civility?" 

"Give  him  a  cigar  next  time  you  get  a  chance." 

Fenwick  laughs,  in  derision  of  his  own  cigars. 

"God  bless  me,  my  dearest  love !  Why,  one  of  the  Baron's  is 
worth  my  whole  box.  We  must  discover  something  better  than 
that."  Both  ponder  over  possible  reciprocities  in  silence,  but 
discover  nothing,  and  seem  to  give  up  the  quest  by  mutual  con- 
sent. Then  he  says:  "I  wonder  why  he  cosseted  up  to  us  last 
night  in  the  garden  so !"  And  she  repeats :  "I  wonder  why !" 

"I  don't  believe  he  even  knows  our  name,"  she  continues;  and 
then  he  repeats :  "7  don't  believe  he  knows  our  name.  I'm  sure 
he  doesn't." 

"And  it  was  so  dark,  he  couldn't  have  seen  much  of  us.  But 
his  cigar's  quite  beautiful.  Blow  the  smoke  in  my  face,  Gerry !" 
She  shuts  her  eyes  to  receive  it.  How  handsome  Sally  would 
think  mamma  was  looking  if  she  could  see  her  now  in  the  light  of 
the  sunset !  Her  husband  thinks  much  to  that  effect,  as  he  turns 
to  blow  the  smoke  on  order  into  the  face  that  is  so  close  to  his, 
as  they  lean  arm-in-arm  on  the  parapet  the  sun  has  left  his 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  195 

warmth  on,  and  means  to  take  his  eyes  off  in  half  an  hour.  They 
really  look  quite  a  young  couple,  and  the  frivolity  of  their  con- 
duct adds  to  the  effect.  Nobody  would  believe  in  her  grown-up 
daughter,  to  see  that  young  Mrs.  Algernon  Fenwick. 

"I  am  ferry  root,  Mrs.  Harrisson.  If  I  introot,  you  shall  say 
I  introot."  It  is  the  Baron,  manifestly.  His  form — or  rather 
his  bulk,  for  he  cannot  be  said  to  have  a  form ;  he  is  amorphous 
— is  baronial  in  the  highest  degree.  His  stupendous  chest  seems 
to  be  a  huge  cavern  for  the  secretion  of  gutturals,  which  are  dis- 
charged as  heavy  artillery  at  a  hint  from  some  unseen  percussion- 
cap  within. 

Mrs.  Fenwick  starts,  a  little  taken  aback  at  the  Baron's  thun- 
derclap; for  he  had  approached  unawares,  and  her  closed  eyes 
helped  on  the  effect.  When  they  opened,  they  looked  round, 
as  for  a  third  person.  But  the  Baron  was  alone. 

"Where  is  Mrs.  Harrisson?"  She  asks  the  question  with  the 
most  absolute  unconsciousness  that  she  was  herself  the  person 
addressed.  The  Baron,  still  believing,  presumably,  that  Fen- 
wick is  Mr.  Harrisson,  is  not  a  person  to  be  trusted  with  the 
position  created.  He  develops  an  offensive  waggery,  shakes  the 
forefinger  that  has  detected  an  escapade,  and  makes  of  his  lips 
the  round  0  of  shocked  propriety,  at  heart  in  sympathy  with 
the  transgressor.  His  little  grey  eyes  glare  through  his  gold- 
rimmed  spectacles,  and  his  huge  chest  shakes  with  a  substratum 
of  laughter,  only  just  loud  enough  to  put  in  the  text. 

"0-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho !  No,  do  not  be  afraight.  She  is  not 
here.  We  unterzdant.  It  is  all  unterzdoot.  We  shall  be  ferry 
tizgreet.  .  .  ."  And  then  the  Baron  pats  space  with  his  fingers 
only,  not  moving  his  hand,  as  a  general  indication  of  secrecy  to 
the  universe. 

Probably  the  slight  flush  that  mantles  the  face  he  speaks  to  is 
less  due  to  any  offence  at  his  fat,  good-humoured  German  raillery 
than  to  some  vague  apprehension  of  the  real  nature  of  the  posi- 
tion about  to  develop.  But  Fenwick  imputes  it  to  the  former. 
If  Rosey  was  inclined  to  treat  the  thing  as  a  harmless  joke,  he 
would  follow  suit;  but  she  looks  hurt,  and  her  husband,  sensi- 
tive about  every  word  that  is  said  to  her,  blazes  out : 

"What  on  earth  do  you  mean  ?  What  the  devil  do  you  mean  ? 
How  dare  you  speak  to  my  wife  like  that?"  He  makes  a  half- 


196  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

step  towards  the  burly  mass  of  flesh,  still  shaking  with  laughter. 
But  his  wife  stops  him. 

"Do  be  patient,  Gerry  darling !  Don't  flare  up  like  that.  I'll 
have  a  divorce.  I'll  tell  Sally  ..."  a  threat  which  seems  to 
have  a  softening  effect.  "Can't  you  see,  dear,  that  there  is  some 
misunderstanding?"  Fenwick  looks  from  her  to  the  Baron, 
puzzled.  The  latter  drops  his  jocular  rallying. 

"I  saw  last  night  you  did  not  know  me,  Mr.  Harrisson.  That 
is  straintch!  Have  you  forgotten  Diedrich  Kreutzkammer  ?" 
He  says  his  name  with  a  sort  of  quiet  confidence  of  immediate 
recognition.  But  Fenwick  only  looks  blankly  at  him. 

"He  does  not  know  me !"  cries  the  German,  with  an  astonished 
voice.  "  'Frisco — the  Klondyke — Chicago — the  bridge  at  Brook- 
lyn— why,  it  is  not  two  years  ago  .  .  ."  He  pauses  between  the 
names  of  the  places,  enforcing  each  as  a  reminder  with  an  active 
forefinger. 

Fenwick  seems  suddenly  to  breathe  the  fresh  air  of  a  solution 
of  the  problem.  He  breaks  into  a  sunny  smile,  to  his  wife's 
great  relief. 

"Indeed,  Baron  Kreutzkammer,  my  name  is  not  Harrisson. 
My  name  is  Fenwick,  and  this  lady  is  my  wife — Mrs.  Fenwick. 
I  have  never  been  in  any  of  the  places  you  mention."  For  the 
moment  he  forgot  his  own  state  of  oblivion :  a  thing  he  was  get- 
ting more  and  more  in  the  habit  of  doing.  The  Baron  looked 
intently  at  him,  and  looked  again.  He  slapped  his  forehead, 
not  lightly  at  all,  but  as  if  good  hard  slaps  would  really  cor- 
rect his  misapprehensions  and  put  him  right  with  the  world. 

"I  am  all  wronck"  he  said,  borrowing  extra  force  from  an 
indurated  g.  "But  it  is  ferry  bustling — I  am  bustled !"  By  this 
he  meant  puzzled.  Fenwick  felt  apologetic. 

"I  don't  know  how  to  thank  you  for  the  cigar  Mr.  Harrisson 
ought  to  have  had,"  said  he.  He  felt  really  ashamed  of  having 
smoked  it  under  false  pretences. 

"You  shall  throw  it  away,  and  I  giff  you  one  for  yourself. 
That  is  eacey !  But  I  am  bustled." 

He  continued  puzzled.  Mrs.  Fenwick  felt  that  he  was  only 
keeping  further  comment  and  inquiry  in  check  because  it  would 
have  been  a  doubt  thrown  on  her  husband's  word  to  make  any. 
Her  uneasiness  would  have  been  visible  if  her  power  of  conceal- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  197 

ing  it  had  not  been  fortified  by  her  belief  that  his  happiness 
as  well  as  hers  depended  (for  the  present,  at  any  rate)  on  his 
ignorance  of  his  own  past.  Perhaps  she  was  wrong ;  with  that  we 
have  nothing  to  do;  we  are  telling  of  things  as  they  happened. 
Only  we  wish  to  record  our  conviction  that  Rosalind  Fenwick  was 
acting  for  her  husband's  sake  as  well  as  her  own — not  from  a 
vulgar  instinct  of  self-preservation. 

The  Baron  made  conversation,  and  polished  his  little  powerful 
spectacle-lenses.  He  blew  his  nose  like  a  salute  of  one  gun  in 
the  course  of  his  polishing.  When  we  blow  our  nose,  we  hush 
our  pocket-handkerchief  back  into  its  home,  and  ignore  it  a 
little.  The  Baron  didn't.  He  continued  polishing  on  an  un- 
alloyed corner  through  the  whole  of  a  very  perceptible  amount 
of  chat  about  the  tricks  memory  plays  us,  and  the  probable  depth 
of  the  blue  water  below.  Rosalind's  uneasiness  continued.  It 
grew  worse,  when  the  Baron,  suddenly  replacing  his  spectacles 
and  fixing  his  eyes  firmly  on  her  husband,  said  sternly,  "Yes,  it 
is  a  bustle !"  but  was  relieved  when  equally  suddenly,  he  shouted 
in  a  stentorian  voice,  "We  shall  meed  lader,"  and  took  his  leave. 

"He's  a  jolly  fellow,  the  Baron,  anyhow!"  said  Fenwick. 
"I  wonder  whether  they  heard  him  at  Altdorf  ?" 

"Every  word,  I  should  think.  But  how  I  should  like  to  see 
the  Mr.  Harrisson  he  took  you  for!" 

This  was  really  part  of  a  policy  of  nettle-grasping,  which  con- 
tinued. She  always  felt  happier  after  defying  a  difficulty  than 
after  flinching.  After  all,  if  Gerry's  happiness  and  her  own 
were  not  motive  enough,  consider  Sally's.  If  she  should  really 
come  to  know  her  mother's  story,  Sally  might  die  of  it. 

Fenwick  went  on  to  the  ending  of  the  cigar,  dreamily  wonder- 
ing, evidently  ''bustled"  like  the  Baron.  As  he  blew  the  last 
smoke  away,  and  threw  the  smoking  end  down  the  slope,  he  re- 
peated her  words  spoken  a  minute  before,  "I  should  like  to  see 
the  Mr.  Harrisson  he  took  me  for." 

"It  would  be  funny  to  see  oneself  as  ithers  see  one.  Some 
power  might  gie  you  the  giftie,  Gerry.  If  only  we  could  meet 
that  Mr.  Harrisson!" 

"Do  you  remember  how  we  saw  our  profiles  in  a  glass,  and 
you  said,  'I'm  sure  those  are  somebody  else'?  Illogical  female!" 

"Why  was  I  illogical  ?    I  knew  they  were  going  to  turn  out  us 


198  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

in  the  end.  But  I  was  sure  I  shouldn't  be  convinced  at  once." 
And  the  talk  wandered  away  into  a  sort  of  paradoxical  meta- 
physics. 

But  when,  later  in  the  evening,  this  lady  was  described  by 
confidential  chat  at  the  far  end  of  the  salon  as  that  handsome 
young  Mrs.  Algernon  Fenwick  who  was  only  just  married.,  and 
whose  husband  was  playing  chess  in  the  smoking-room,  and 
what  a  pity  it  was  they  were  not  going  to  stop  over  Monday, 
she  thus  described,  accurately  enough,  was  rather  rejoicing  that 
that  handsome  Mr.  Fenwick,  who  looked  like  a  Holbein  portrait, 
was  being  kept  quiet  for  half  an  hour,  because  she  wanted  to  get 
a  chance  for  a  little  chat  with  that  dreadful  noisy  Prussian  Von, 
who  made  all  the  glasses  ring  at  table  when  he  shouted  so.  Rosa- 
lind  had  her  own  share  of  feminine  curiosity,  don't  you  see? 
and  she  was  not  by  any  means  satisfied  about  Mr.  Harrisson. 
She  did  not  acknowledge  the  nature  of  her  suspicions  to  herself, 
but  she  would  very  much  like  to  know,  for  all  that!  She  got 
her  opportunity. 

"I  shouldn't  the  least  mind  myself  if  smoking  ivere  allowed 
in  the  salon,  Baron.  You  saw  to-day  that  I  really  liked  the 
smoke  ?" 

"Ja !  when  I  make  that  chogue.  It  was  a  root  chogue.  But 
I  am  forgiffen?" 

"It  was  Gerry  who  had  to  be  forgiven,  breaking  out  like  that. 
I  hope  he  has  promised  not  to  do  so  any  more?" 

"He  has  bromiss  to  be  goot.  I  have  bromiss  to  be  goot.  We 
shall  be  sages  enfants,  as  the  French  say.  But  I  will  tell  you, 
Madame  Fenwick,  about  my  vrent  Harrisson  your  Cherry  is  so 
ligue  .  .  ." 

"Let's  go  out  on  the  terrace,  then  you  can  light  a  cigar  and 
be  comfortable.  .  .  .  Yes,  I'll  have  my  wrap  ...  no,  that's 
wrong-side-out  .  .  .  that's  right  now.  .  .  .  Well,  perhaps  it  will 
be  a  little  cool  for  sitting  down.  We  can  walk  about." 

"Now  I  can  tell  you  about  my  vrent  in  America  that  your 
hussband  is  so  ligue.  He  could  speague  French — ferry  well  in- 
deed." Rosalind  looked  up.  "It  was  when  I  heard  your  huss- 
band speaguing  French  to  that  grosse  Grafin  Pobzodonoff  that  I 
think  to  myself  that  was  Alchernon  Harrisson  that  I  knew  in 
California." 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  199 

"Suppose  we  sit  down.  I  don't  think  it's  too  cold.  .  .  .  Yes, 
this  place  will  do  nicely.  It's  sheltered  from  the  wind."  If 
she  docs  look  a  little  pale — and  she  feels  she  does — it  will  be 
quite  invisible  in  this  dark  corner,  for  the  night  is  dark  under 
a  canopy  of  blazing  stars.  "What  were  you  saying  about 
French?" 

"Alchernon  Harrisson — that  was  his  name — he  could  speague 
it  well.  He  spogue  id  ligue  a  nadiff.  Better  than  I  speague 
English.  I  speague  English  so  well  because  I  have  a  knees  at 
Ganderbury."  This  meant  a  niece  at  Canterbury.  Baron 
Kreutzkammer  speaks  English  so  well  that  it  is  almost  a  shame 
to  lay  stress  on  his  pronunciation  of  consonants.  The  spelling 
is  difficult  too,  so  we  will  give  the  substance  of  what  he  told 
Rosalind  without  his  articulation.  By  this  time  she,  for  her  part, 
was  feeling  thoroughly  uneasy.  It  seemed  to  her — but  it  may 
be  she  exaggerated — that  nothing  stood  between  her  husband 
and  the  establishment  of  his  identity  with  this  Harrisson  except 
the  difference  of  name.  And  how  could  she  know  that  he  had 
not  changed  his  name?  Had  she  not  changed  hers? 

The  Baron's  account  of  Harrisson  was  that  he  made  his  ac- 
quaintance about  three  years  since  at  San  Francisco,  where  he 
had  come  to  choose  gold-mining  plant  to  work  a  property  he  had 
purchased  at  Klondyke.  Rosalind  found  it  a  little  difficult 
to  understand  the  account  of  how  the  acquaintance  began,  from 
want  of  knowledge  of  mining  machinery.  But  the  gist  of  it 
was  that  the  Baron,  at  that  time  a  partner  in  a  firm  that  con- 
structed stamping-mills,  was  explaining  the  mechanism  of  one 
to  Harrisson,  who  was  standing  close  to  a  small  vertical  pugmill, 
or  mixer  of  some  sort,  just  at  the  moment  the  driving-engine 
had  stopped  and  the  fly-wheel  had  nearly  slowed  down.  He 
went  carelessly  too  near  the  still  revolving  machinery,  and  his 
coat-flap  was  caught  and  wound  into  the  helix  of  the  pugmill. 
"It  would  have  crowned  me  badly,"  said  the  Baron.  But  he 
remained  unground,  for  Harrisson,  who  was  standing  close  to 
the  moribund  fly-wheel,  suddenly  flung  himself  on  it,  and  with 
incredible  strength  actually  cut  short  the  rotation  before  the 
Baron  could  be  entangled  in  a  remorseless  residuum  of  crushing 
power,  which,  for  all  it  looked  so  gentle,  would  have  made  short 
work  of  a  horse's  thigh-bone.  The  Baron's  coat  was  spoiled, 


200  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

though  he  was  intact.  But  Harrisson's  right  arm  had  done  more 
than  a  human  arm's  fair  share  of  work,  and  had  to  rest  and 
be  nursed.  They  had  become  intimate  friends,  and  the  Baron 
had  gone  constantly  to  inquire  after  the  swelled  arm.  It  took 
time  to  become  quite  strong  again,  he  said!  It  was  a  fine  strong 
arm,  and  burned  all  over  with  gunpowder,  "what  you  call  dad- 
dooed  in  English." 

"Did  it  get  quite  well?" 

"Ferry  nearly.  There  was  a  little  blaze  in  the  choint  here" 
— the  Baron  touched  his  thumb — "where  the  bane  remained — 
a  roomadic  bane.  He  burgessed  a  gopper  ring  for  it.  It  did  him 
no  goot."  Luckily  Rosalind  had  discarded  the  magic  ring  long 
since,  or  it  might  have  come  into  court  awkwardly. 

If  she  still  entertained  any  doubts  about  the  identity  of  her 
husband  and  Harrisson,  the  Baron's  next  words  removed  them. 
They  came  in  answer  to  an  expression  of  wonder  of  hers  that 
he  should  so  readily  accept  her  husband's  word  for  his  identity 
in  the  face  of  the  evidence  of  his  own  senses.  "I  really  think," 
she  had  said,  "that  if  I  were  in  your  place  I  should  think  he  was 
telling  fibs."  This  was  nettle-grasping. 

"Ach,  ach!  No — no — no!"  shouted  the  Baron,  so  loud  that 
she  was  afraid  it  would  reach  the  chess-players  in  the  smoking- 
room,  "I  arrife  at  it  by  logic,  by  reasson.  Giff  me  your  atten- 
tion." He  held  up  one  finger  firmly,  as  an  act  of  hypnotism, 
to  procure  it.  "Either  I  am  ride  or  I  am  wronck.  I  cannot  be 
neither." 

"You  might  be  mistaken." 

The  Baron's  finger  waved  this  remark  aside  impatiently.  "I 
will  fairy  the  syllogism,"  he  shouted.  "Either  your  husband 
is  Mr.  Harrisson,  or  he  is  not.  He  cannot  be  neither."  This 
was  granted.  "Ferry  well,  then.  If  he  is  Mr.  Harrisson,  Mr. 
Harrisson  has  doled  fips.  But  I  know  Mr.  Harrisson  would  not 
dell  fips.  Imbossible!" 

"And  if  he  is  not?"  The  Baron  points  out  that  in  this  case 
his  statement  is  true  by  hypothesis,  to  say  nothing  of  the  in- 
trinsic probability  of  truthfulness  on  the  part  of  any  one  so 
like  Mr.  Harrisson.  He  is  careful  to  dwell  on  the  fact  that  this 
consideration  of  the  matter  is  purely  analysis  of  a  metaphysical 
crux,  indulged  in  for  scientific  illumination.  He  then  goes  on 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  201 

to  apologize  for  having  been  so  very  positive.  But  no  doubt 
one  or  two  minor  circumstances  had  so  affected  his  imagination 
that  he  saw  a  very  strong  likeness  where  only  a  very  slight  one 
existed.  "I  shall  look  again.  I  shall  be  wicer  next  time."  But 
what  were  the  minor  circumstances,  Rosalind  asked. 

"There  was  the  French — the  lankwitch — that  was  one.  But 
there  was  another — his  noce!  I  will  tell  you.  When  my  frent 
Harrisson  gribe  holt  of  that  wheel,  his  head  go  down  etchwice." 
The  Baron  tried  to  hint  at  this  with  his  own  head,  but  his  neck, 
which  was  like  a  prize-bull's,  would  not  lend  itself  to  the  illus- 
tration. "That  wheel  was  ferry  smooth — with  a  sharp  gorner. 
His  noce  touch  that  corner."  The  Baron  said  no  more  in  words, 
but  pantomimic  action  and  a  whistle  showed  plainly  how  the 
wheel-rim  had  glided  on  the  bridge  of  Mr.  Harrisson's  nose. 
"It  took  off  the  gewdiggle,  and  made  a  sgar.  Your  hussband's 
noce  has  that  ferry  sgar.  That  affected  my  imatchination.  It 
is  easy  to  unterzdant." 

But  the  subject  was  frightening  Rosalind.  She  would  have 
liked  to  hear  much  more  about  Mr.  Harrisson;  might  ever  have 
ended  by  taking  the  fat  Baron,  whom  she  thoroughly  liked, 
into  her  confidence.  The  difficulty,  however,  was  about  decision 
in  immediate  action,  which  would  be  irrevocable.  Silence  was 
safer — or,  sleep  on  it  at  least  For  now,  she  must  change  the 
conversation. 

"How  sweet  the  singing  sounds  under  the  starlight!"  But 
the  Baron  will  not  tolerate  any  such  loose  inaccuracy. 

"It  would  sount  the  same  in  the  taydime.  The  fibrations 
are  the  same."  But  he  more  than  makes  up  for  his  harsh 
prosaism  by  singing,  in  unison  with  the  singers  unseen: 

"  Ich  weiss  nicht  was  soil  es  bedenten 
Dass  ich  so  tranrig  bin .  .  .    ." 

No  one  could  ever  have  imagined  that  such  heavenly  sounds 
could  come  from  anything  so  fat  and  noisy.  Mrs.  Fenwick  shuts 
her  eyes  to  listen. 

When  she  opens  them  again,  jerked  back  from  a  temporary 
dream-paradise  by  the  Baron  remarking  with  the  voice  of  Stentor 
or  Boanerges  that  it  is  a  "ferry  broody  lied,"  her  husband  is 
standing  there.  He  has  been  listening  to  the  music.  The  Baron 


202  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

adds  that  his  friend  Mr.  Harrisson  was  "ferry  vond  of  that 
lied." 

But  when  the  two  of  them  have  said  a  cordial  good-night 
to  the  unwieldy  nightingale,  who  goes  away  to  bed,  as  he  has 
to  leave  early  in  the  morning,  Fenwick  is  very  silent,  and  once 
and  again  brushes  his  hair  about,  and  shakes  his  head  in  his 
old  way.  His  wife  sees  what  it  is.  The  music  has  gone  as  near 
touching  the  torpid  memory  as  the  wild  autumn  night  and  the 
cloud-race  round  the  moon  had  done  in  the  little  front  garden 
at  home  a  year  ago. 

"A  recurrence,  Gerry?"  she  asks. 

"Something  of  the  sort,  Eosey  love,"  he  says.  "Something 
quite  mad  this  time.  There  was  a  steam-engine  in  it,  of  all 
things  in  the  world!"  But  it  has  been  painful,  evidently — a 
discomfort  at  least — as  these  things  always  are. 

Rosalind's  apprehension  of  untimely  revelations  dictated  a 
feeling  of  satisfaction  that  the  Baron  was  going  away  next  day; 
her  regret  at  losing  the  choice  of  further  investigation  admitted 
one  of  dissatisfaction  that  he  had  gone.  The  net  result  was 
unsettlement  and  discomfort,  which  lasted  through  the  re- 
mainder of  Sonnenberg,  and  did  not  lift  altogether  until  the 
normallest  of  normal  life  came  back  in  a  typical  London  four- 
wheeler,  which  dutifully  obeyed  the  injunction  to  "go  slowly," 
not  only  through  the  arch  that  injunction  brooded  over,  but 
even  to  the  end  of  the  furlong  outside  the  radius  which  com- 
manded an  extra  sixpence  and  got  more.  But  what  did  that 
matter  when  Sally  was  found  watching  at  the  gate  for  its  advent, 
and  received  her  stepfather  with  an  undisguised  hug  as  soon  as 
she  found  it  in  her  heart  to  relinquish  her  mother? 


CHAPTEK  XX 

MERE  DAILY  LIFE  AT  KRAKATOA.  BUT  SALLY  IS  QUITE  FENWICK^S 
DAUGHTER  BY  NOW.  OF  HER  VIEWS  ABOUT  DR.  VEREKER,  AND  OF 
TISHY7S  AUNT  FRANCES 

WHEN  you  come  back  from  a  holiday  to  a  sodden  and  mon- 
strous London,  it  is  best  to  be  welcomed  by  something  young — 
by  a  creature  that  is  convinced  that  it  has  been  enjoying  itself, 
and  that  convinces  you  as  well,  although  you  can't  for  the  life  of 
you  understand  the  details.  Why  should  anything  enjoy  itself 
or  anything  else  in  this  Cimmerian  gloom,  while  away  over  there 
the  great  Alpine  peaks  are  white  against  the  blue,  and  other- 
where the  music  of  a  hundred  seas  mixes  with  their  thunder  on 
a  thousand  shores?  Why  come  home? 

But  when  we  do  and  find  that  nothing  particular  has  hap- 
pened, and  that  there's  a  card  for  us  on  the  mantelpiece,  how 
stuffy  are  our  welcomers,  and  how  well  they  tone  into  the  sur- 
rounding grey  when  they  are  elderly  and  respectable?  It  is 
different  when  we  find  that,  from  their  point  of  view,  it  is  we 
that  have  been  the  losers  by  our  absence  from  all  the  great 
and  glorious  fun  the  days  have  been  made  of  while  we  were 
away  on  a  mistaken  and  deluded  continent,  far  from  this  delect- 
able human  ant-hill — this  centre  and  climax  of  Life  with  a  cap- 
ital letter.  But  then,  when  this  is  so,  they  have  to  be  young,  as 
Sally  was. 

The  ex-honeymooners  came  back  to  jubilant  records  of  that 
young  lady's  experience  during  the  five  weeks  of  separation. 
She  listened  with  impatience  to  counter  records  of  adventures 
abroad,  much  preferring  to  tell  of  her  own  at  home.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Fenwick  acquiesced  in  the  role  of  listeners,  and  left  the 
rostrum  to  Sally  after  they  had  been  revived  with  soup,  and 
declined  cutlets,  because  they  really  had  had  plenty  to  eat  on  the 
way.  The  rostrum  happened  to  be  a  hassock  on  the  hearthrug, 


204  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

before  the  little  bit  of  fire  that  wasn't  at  all  unwelcome,  because 
September  had  set  in  quite  cold  already,  and  there  was  certain 
to  be  a  warm  Christmas  if  it  went  on  like  this,  and  it  would  be 
very  unhealthy. 

"And  oh,  do  you  know" — thus  Sally,  after  many  other  matters 
had  been  disposed  of — "there  has  been  such  an  awful  row  be- 
tween Tishy  and  her  mother  about  Julius  Bradshaw?"  Sally 
is  serious  and  impressed;  doesn't  see  the  comic  side,  if  there  is 
one.  Her  mother  felt  that  if  there  was  to  be  a  volley  of  in- 
dignation discharged  at  Mrs.  Wilson  for  her  share  in  the  row, 
she  herself,  as  belonging  to  the  class  mother,  might  feel  called 
on  to  support  her,  and  was  reserved  accordingly. 

"I  suppose  Lsetitia  wants  to  marry  Mr.  Bradshaw.  Is  that 
it?" 

"Of  course  that's  it !  He  hasn't  proposed,  because  he's  prom- 
ised not  to;  but  he  will  any  time  Tishy  gives  a  hint.  Mean- 
while Goody  Wilson  has  refused  to  sanction  his  visits  at  the 
house,  and  Laetitia  has  said  she  will  go  into  lodgings." 

"Sally  darling,  I  do  wish  you  wouldn't  call  all  the  married 
ladies  of  your  acquaintance  Goody.  You'll  do  it  some  day  to 
their  faces." 

"It's  only  the  middle-aged  bouncers." 

"Well,  dear  chick,  do  try  and  not  call  them  Goody.  What 
did  Goo — there!  I  was  going  to  do  it  myself.  What  did  Mrs. 
Wilson  say  to  that?" 

"Said  Tishy's  allowance  wouldn't  cover  lodgings,  and  she 
had  nothing  else  to  fall  back  on.  So  we  go  into  the  Park 
instead." 

Even  Mrs.  Fenwick's  habituation  to  her  daughter's  incisive 
method  is  no  proof  against  this.  She  breaks  into  an  affectionate 
laugh,  and  kisses  its  provoker,  who  protests. 

"We-e-ell!  There's  nothing  in  that.  We  have  tea  in  the 
shilling  places  under  the  trees  in  Kensington  Gardens.  That's 
all  right." 

"Of  course  that's  all  right — with  a  chaperon  like  you!  Who 
could  say  anything?  But  do  tell  me,  Sally  darling,  does  Mrs. 
Wilson  dislike  this  young  man  on  his  own  account,  or  is  it  only 
the  shop?" 

"Only  the  shop,   I   do  believe.     And   Tishy's  twenty-four! 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  205 

What  is  my  stepfather  sitting  smiling  at  there  in  that  contented 
way  ?  Is  that  a  Mossoo  cigar  ?  It  smells  very  nice." 

"I  was  smiling  at  you,  Sarah.  No,  it's  not  a  Mossoo  that 
I  know  of.  A  German  Baron  gave  it  me.  .  .  .  No,  dearest! 
It  really  was  all  right.  .  .  .  No — I  really  can't  exactly  say  how; 
but  it  was  all  right  for  all  that.  .  .  ."  This  was  in  answer  to  a 
comment  of  his  wife. 

"Never  mind  the  German  Baron,"  Sally  interrupts.  "What 
business  have  you  to  smile  at  me,  Jeremiah?"  They  had  chris- 
tened each  other  Jeremiah  and  Sarah  for  working  purposes. 

"Because  I  chose — because  you're  such  a  funny  little  article." 
He  comes  a  little  nearer  to  her,  and  putting  his  arm  round  her 
neck,  pinches  her  off-cheek.  She  gives  him  a  very  short  kiss — 
hardly  a  real  one — just  an  acknowledgment.  He  remains  with 
her  little  white  hand  in  his  great  hairy  one,  and  she  leans  against 
him  and  accepts  the  position.  But  that  cigar  is  on  her  mother's 
mind. 

"How  many  did  he  give  you,  Gerry  ?    Now  tell  the  truth." 

"He  gave  me  a  lot.  I  smuggled  them.  I  can't  tell  you  why 
it  seemed  all  right  I  should  accept  them.  But  it  did." 

"I  suppose  you  know  best,  dear.  Men  are  men,  and  I'm  a 
female.  But  he  was  such  a  perfect  stranger."  She,  of  course, 
knew  quite  well  that  he  was  not,  but  there  was  nettle-grasping 
in  it  on  her  part. 

"Yes,  he  was.  But  somehow  he  didn't  seem  so.  Perhaps 
it  was  because  I  flew  into  such  a  rage  with  him  about  what  he 
called  his  'crade  chogue.'  But  it  wasn't  only  that.  Some- 
thing about  the  chap  himself — I  can't  tell  what."  And  Fenwick 
becomes  distrait,  with  a  sort  of  restless  searching  on  his  face. 
He  sits  on,  silent,  patting  Sally's  little  white  hand  in  his,  and 
letting  the  prized  cigar  take  care  of  itself,  and  remains  silent 
until,  after  a  few  more  interesting  details  about  the  "great 
row"  at  Ladbroke  Grove  Road,  all  three  agree  that  sleep  is 
overdue,  and  depart  to  receive  payment. 

Rosalind  knows  the  meaning  of  it  all  perfectly.  Some  tiny 
trace  of  memory  of  the  fat  Kreutzkammer  lingered  in  her  hus- 
band's crippled  mind — something  as  confused  as  the  revolving 
engine's  connexion  with  the  German  volkslied.  But  enough 
to  prevent  his  feeling  the  ten  francs'  worth  of  cigars  an  oppres- 


206  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

sive  benevolence.  It  was  very  strange  to  her  that  it  should  so 
happen,  but,  having  happened,  it  did  not  seem  unnatural.  What 
was  stranger  still  was  that  Gerry  should  be  there,  loving  Sally 
like  a  father — just  as  her  own  stepfather  "Paul  Nightingale  had 
come  to  love  her — caressing  her,  and  never  dreaming  for  a  mo- 
ment how  that  funny  little  article  came  about.  Yes,  come  what 
might,  she  would  do  her  best  to  protect  these  two  from  that 
knowledge,  however  many  lies  she  had  to  tell.  She  was  far  too 
good  and  honourable  a  woman  to  care  a  particle  about  truthful- 
ness as  a  means  to  an  easy  conscience;  she  did  not  mind  the 
least  how  much  hers  suffered  if  it  was  necessary  to  the  happi- 
ness of  others  that  it  should  do  so.  And  in  her  judgment — 
though  we  admit  she  may  have  been  wrong — a  revelation  of  the 
past  would  have  taken  all  the  warmth  and  light  out  of  the  happy 
and  contented  little  world  of  Krakatoa  Villa,  So  long  as  she 
had  the  cloud  to  herself,  and  saw  the  others  out  in  the  sunshine, 
she  felt  safe,  and  that  all  was  well. 

She  would  have  liked  companionship  inside  the  cloud,  for  all 
that.  It  was  a  cruel  disappointment  to  find,  when  she  came  to 
reflect  on  it,  that  she  could  not  carry  out  a  first  intention  of  tak- 
ing Colonel  Lund  into  her  confidence  about  the  Baron,  and  the 
undoubted  insight  he  had  given  into  some  portion  of  Fenwick's 
previous  life.  Obviously  it  would  have  involved  telling  her 
husband's  whole  story.  Her  belief  that  he  was  Harrisson  in- 
volved her  knowledge  that  he  was  not  Fenwick.  The  Major 
would  have  said  at  once :  "Why  not  tell  him  all  this  Baron  told 
you,  and  see  if  it  wouldn't  bring  all  his  life  back  to  him?"  And 
then  she  would  have  to  tell  the  Major  who  he  really  was,  to  show 
him  the  need  of  keeping  silence  about  the  story.  No,  no! 
Danger  lay  that  way.  Too  much  finessing  would  be  wanted; 
too  many  reserves. 

So  she  bore  her  secret  knowledge  alone,  for  their  sakes  feeling 
all  the  while  like  the  scapegoat  in  the  wilderness.  But  it  was  a 
happy  wilderness  for  her,  as  time  proved.  Her  husband's  temper 
and  disposition  were  well  described  by  Sally,  when  she  told  Dr. 
Vereker  in  confidence  one  day  that  when  he  boiled  he  blew  the 
lid  of?,  but  that  he  was  a  practical  lamb,  and  was  wax  in  her 
mother's  hands.  A  good  fizz  did  good,  whatever  people  said. 
And  the  doctor  agreed  cordially.  For  he  had  a  mother  whose 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  207 

temper  was  notoriously  sweetness  itself,  but  was  manipulated  by 
its  owner  with  a  dexterity  that  secured  all  the  effects  of  dis- 
comfort to  its  beneficiaries,  without  compromising  her  own 
claims  to  canonization. 

Fenwick's  temper — this  expression  always  means  want  of 
temper,  or  absence  of  temper — was  of  the  opposite  sort.  It 
occasioned  no  inconvenience  to  any  one,  and  every  one  detected 
and  classed  it  after  knowing  him  for  twenty-four  hours.  The 
married  couple  had  not  existed  for  three  months  in  that  form 
before  this  trivial  individuality  was  defined  by  Ann  and  Cook  as 
"only  master."  Sally  became  so  callous  after  a  slight  passing 
alarm  at  one  or  two  explosions  that  she  would,  for  instance, 
address  her  stepfather,  after  hearing  his  volleys  at  some  offender 
in  the  distance,  with,  "Who  did  I  hear  you  calling  a  confounded 
idiot,  Jeremiah?"  To  which  he  would  reply,  softening  into  a 
genial  smile:  "Lost  my  temper,  I  did,  Sarah  dear.  Lost  my 
temper  with  the  Wash.  The  Wash  sticks  in  pins  and  the  heads 
are  too  small  to  get  hold  of";  or,  "People  shouldn't  lick  their 
envelopes  up  to  the  hilt,  and  spoil  one's  ripping-corner,  unless 
they  want  a  fellow  to  swear" ;  or  something  similar  belonging  to 
the  familiar  trials  of  daily  life. 

But  really  safety-valve  tempers  are  so  common  that  Fenwick's 
would  scarcely  have  called  for  notice  if  it  had  not  been  that,  on 
one  occasion,  a  remark  of  Sally's  about  a  rather  more  vigorous 
emeute  than  usual  led  her  mother,  accidentally  thrown  off  her 
guard,  to  reply :  "Yes !  But  you  have  no  idea  how  much  better 

he  is "  and  then  to  stop  suddenly,  seeing  the  mistake  she  was 

making.  She  had  no  time  to  see  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty 
before  Sally,  puzzled,  looked  at  her  with:  "Better  than  when? 
I've  known  him  longer  than  you  have,  mother."  For  Sally 
always  boasted  of  her  earlier  acquaintance. 

"No  when  at  all,  kitten !  How  much  better  he  is  when  we  are 
alone!  He  never  flares  up  then — that's  what  I  meant."  But 
she  knew  quite  well  that  her  sentence,  if  finished,  would  have 
stood,  "how  much  better  he  is  than  he  used  to  be!"  She  was 
too  candid  a  witness  in  the  court  of  her  own  conscience  to  make 
any  pretence  that  this  wasn't  a  lie.  Of  course  it  was;  but  if 
she  never  had  to  tell  a  worse  one  than  that  for  Sally's  sake,  she 
would  be  fortunate  indeed. 


208  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

She  was  much  more  happy  in  the  court  of  her  conscience 
than  she  was  in  that  of  St.  Satisfax — if  we  may  ascribe  a  judicial 
status  to  him,  to  help  us  through  with  our  analysis  of  her  frame 
of  mind.  His  was  a  court  which,  if  not  identical  at  all  points 
with  the  analogous  exponents  of  things  Divine  in  her  youth, 
was  fraught  with  the  same  jurisdiction;  was  vocal  with  reso- 
nances that  proclaimed  the  same  consequences  to  the  unredeemed 
that  the  mumblings  of  a  pastor  of  her  early  days,  remembered 
with  little  gratitude,  had  been  inarticulate  with.  Her  babyhood 
had  received  the  idea  that  liars  would  be  sent  unequivocally 
to  hell,  and  her  maturity  could  not  get  rid  of  it.  Outside  the 
precinct  of  the  saint,  the  brief  working  morality  that  considers 
other  folk  first  was  enough  for  her;  within  it,  the  theologism  of 
an  offended  deity  still  held  a  traditional  sway.  Outside,  her 
whole  soul  recoiled  from  the  idea  of  her  child  knowing  a  story 
that  would  eat  into  her  heart  like  a  cancer;  within,  a  reserve- 
corner  of  that  soul,  inoculated  when  it  was  new  and  susceptible, 
shuddered  at  her  unsejfish  adhesion  to  the  only  means  by  which 
that  child  could  be  kept  in  ignorance. 

However,  she  was  clear  about  one  thing.  She  would  apologize 
in  prayer ;  but  she  would  go  to  hell  rather  than  have  Sally  made 
miserable.  Thus  it  came  about  that  Mrs.  Fenwick  continued  a 
very  devout  church-goer,  and,  as  her  husband  never  left  her  side 
when  he  had  a  choice,  he,  too,  became  a  frequent  guest  of  St. 
Satisfax,  whom  he  seemed  to  regard  as  a  harmless  though  fan- 
tastic person  who  lived  in  some  century  or  other,  only  you  always 
forgot  which. 

His  familiarity  with  the  usages  of  the  reformed  St.  Satisfax, 
and  his  power  of  discriminating  the  lapses  of  that  saint  towards 
the  vices  of  his  early  unregenerate  days — he  being  all  the  while 
perfectly  unconscious  how  he  came  to  know  anything  of  either — 
continued  to  perplex  his  wife,  and  was  a  source  of  lasting  be- 
wilderment to  Sally.  A  particular  incident  growing  out  of  this 
was  always  associated  in  Rosalind's  mind  with  an  epithet  he  then 
applied  to  Sally  for  the  first  time,  but  which  afterwards  grew 
to  be  habitual  with  him. 

"Of  course,  it's  the  Communion-table,"  he  said  in  connexion 
with  some  discussion  of  church  furniture.  "We  have  no  altars 
in  our  church  nowadays.  You're  a  Papist,  Sarah !" 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  209 

"I  thought  Communion-tables  were  an  Evangelical  start," 
said  Sally  irreverently.  "A  Low  Church  turn-out.  Our  Mr. 
Prince  is  a  Tractarian,  and  a  Ritualist,  and  a  Puseyite,  and  an 
Anglican.  That's  his  game!  The  Bishop  of  London  won't  let 
him  perform  High  Mass,  and  /  think  it  a  shame!  Don't  you? 
.  .  .  But  I  say,  Jeremiah!"  And  Jeremiah  refrained  from 
expressing  whatever  indignation  he  felt  with  the  Bishop  of 
London,  to  find  what  Sally  said.  It  was  to  the  effect  that  it  was 
incredible  that  he  should  know  absolutely  nothing  about  the 
original  source  of  his  information. 

"I  can  only  tell  you,  Sarah  dear/'  he  said,  with  the  ring  of 
sadness  in  his  voice  that  always  came  on  this  topic,  "that  I  do 
remember  nothing  of  the  people  who  taught  me,  or  the  place  I 
learned  in.  Yet  I  know  about  Tract  No.  90,  and  Pusey  and 
Newman,  for  all  that.  How  I  remember  things  that  were 
information,  and  forget  things  that  were  things,  is  more  than  I 
can  tell  you.  But  can't  you  think  of  bits  of  history  you 
know  quite  well,  without  ever  recalling  where  you  got  them 
from?" 

"Of  course  I  can.  At  least,  I  could  if  I  knew  some  history. 
Only  I  don't.  Oh  yes,  I  do.  Perkin  Warbeck  and  Anne  of 
Cleves.  I've  forgotten  about  them  now,  only  I  know  I  knew 
them  both.  I've  answered  about  them  in  examinations.  They're 
history  all  right  enough.  As  to  who  taught  me  about  them, 
couldn't  say!" 

"Very  well,  Sarah.  Now  put  a  good  deal  of  side  into  your 
stroke,  and  you'll  arrive  at  me." 

But  the  revival  of  the  old  question  had  dug  up  discomfort  his 
mind  had  done  its  best  to  inter ;  and  he  went  silent  and  sat  with 
a  half-made  cigarette  in  his  fingers  thinking  gravely.  Rosalind, 
at  a  writing-table  behind  him,  moved  her  lips  at  Sally  to  convey 
an  injunction.  Sally,  quickly  apprehensive,  understood  it  as 
"Let  him  alone !  Don't  rake  up  the  electrocution !"  But  Sally's 
native  directness  betrayed  her,  and  before  she  had  time  to  think, 
she  had  said,  "All  right;  I  won't."  The  consequence  of  which 
was  that  Fenwick — being,  as  Sally  afterwards  phrased  it,  "too 
sharp  by  half" — looked  up  suddenly  from  his  reverie,  and  said, 
as  he  finished  rolling  his  cigarette,  "What  won't  our  daughter  ?" 

The  pleasure  that  struck  through  his  wife's  heart  was  audible 


210  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

in  her  voice  as  she  caught  it  up.  "Our  daughter  won't  be  a  silly 
inquisitive  little  puss-cat,  darling.  It  only  worries  you,  and 
does  no  good."  And  he  replied  to  her,  as  she  came  behind  him 
and  stood  with  an  appreciative  side-face  against  his,  with  a  semi- 
apology  for  the  phrase  "daughter,"  and  allowed  the  rest  of  what 
they  were  speaking  of  to  lapse. 

"I  called  her  it  for  the  pleasure  of  saying  it,"  said  he.  "It 
sounded  so  nice !"  And  then  he  knew  that  her  kiss  was  approval, 
but  of  course  had  no  conception  of  its  thoroughness.  For  her 
part,  she  hardly  dared  to  think  of  the  strangeness  of  the  posi- 
tion; she  could  only  rejoice  at  its  outcome. 

After  that  it  became  so  natural  to  him  to  speak  of  Sally  as 
"our  daughter"  that  often  enough  new  acquaintances  mis- 
conceived her  relation  to  him,  and  had  a  shrewd  insight  that  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Fenwick  must  have  been  married  very  young.  Once 
some  visitors — a  lady  with  one  married  daughter  and  two  single 
ones — were  so  powerfully  impressed  with  Sally's  resemblance 
to  her  supposed  parent  that  three-fourths  of  them  went  uncon- 
vinced away,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  whole  household  to 
remove  the  error.  The  odd  fourth  was  supposed  to  have  carried 
away  corrective  information.  "I  got  the  flat  one,  with  the  elbows, 
in  a  quiet  corner,"  said  Sally,  "and  told  her  Jeremiah  was 
only  step.  Because  they  all  shouted  at  once,  so  it  was  impossible 
to  make  them  hear  in  a  lump." 

Mistakes  of  this  sort,  occurring  frequently,  reacted  on  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Fenwick,  who  found  in  them  a  constant  support  and  justi- 
fication for  the  theory  that  Sally  was  really  the  daughter  of 
both,  while  admitting  intellectual  rejection  of  it  to  be  plausible 
to  commonplace  minds.  They  themselves  got  on  a  higher  level, 
where  ex-post-facto  parentages  were  possible.  Causes  might  have 
miscarried,  but  results  having  turned  out  all  right,  it  would  never 
do  to  be  too  critical  about  antecedents.  Anyhow,  Sally  was 
going  to  be  our  daughter,  whether  she  was  or  not. 

Rosalind  always  found  a  curious  consolation  in  the  reflection 
that,  however  bewildering  the  position  might  be,  she  had  it  all 
to  herself.  This  was  entirely  apart  from  her  desire  to  keep  Fen- 
wick in  ignorance  of  his  past;  that  was  merely  a  necessity 
for  his  own  sake  and  Sally's,  while  this  related  to  the  painfulness 
of  standing  face  to  face  with  an  incredible  conjunction  of  sur- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  211 

roundings.  She,  if  alone,  could  take  refuge  in  wonder-struck 
silence.  If  her  knowledge  were  shared  with  another,  how  could 
examination  and  analysis  be  avoided?  And  these  would  involve 
the  resurrection  of  what  she  could  keep  underground  as  long  as 
she  was  by  herself ;  backed  by  a  thought,  if  needed,  of  the  merry 
eyebrows  and  pearly  teeth,  and  sweet,  soft  youth,  of  its  un- 
conscious result.  But  to  be  obliged  to  review  and  speculate 
over  what  she  desired  to  forget,  and  was  helped  to  forget  by 
gratitude  for  its  consequences,  would  have  been  a  needless  addi- 
tion to  the  burden  she  had  already  to  bear. 

The  only  person  she  could  get  any  consolation  from  talking 
with  was  the  Major,  who  already  knew,  or  nearly  knew,  the 
particulars  of  the  nightmare  of  twenty  years  ago.  But,  then — 
we  feel  that  we  are  repeating  this  ad  nauseam — he  was  quite  in 
the  dark  about  Fenwick's  identity,  and  was  to  be  kept  there. 
Eosalind  had  decided  it  so,  and  she  may  have  been  right. 

Would  she  have  done  better  by  forcing  on  her  husband  the 
knowledge  of  his  own  identity,  and  risking  the  shock  to  her 
daughter  of  hearing  the  story  of  her  outsider  father's  sin  against 
her  mother?  Her  decision  against  this  course  was  always  em- 
phasized by — may  even  have  been  unconsciously  due  to — her 
prevision  of  the  difficulty  of  the  communication  to  Sally.  How 
should  she  set  about  it?  She  pictured  various  forms  of  the  at- 
tempt to  herself,  and  found  none  she  did  not  shudder  at. 

The  knowledge  that  such  things  could  be  would  spoil  the  whole 
world  for  the  girl.  She  had  to  confess  to  herself  that  the  custo- 
mary paltering  with  the  meaning  of  words  that  enables  modern 
novels  to  be  written  about  the  damnedest  things  in  the  universe 
would  either  leave  her  mind  uninformed,  or  call  for  a  commen- 
tary— a  rubric  in  the  reddest  of  red  letters.  Even  a  resort  to  the 
brutal  force  of  Oriental  speech  done  into  Jacobean  English 
would  be  of  little  avail.  For  hypocrisy  is  at  work  all  through 
juvenile  reception  of  Holy  Writ,  and  brings  out  as  a  result  the 
idea  that  that  writ  is  holy  because  it  uses  coarse  language  about 
things  that  hardly  call  for  it.  It  Bowdlerises  Potiphar's  wife, 
and  favours  the  impression  that  in  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  the 
inhabitants  were  dissipated  and  sat  up  late.  This  sort  of  thing 
wouldn't  work  with  Sally.  If  the  story  were  to  be  told  at  all, 
her  thunderbolt  directness  would  have  it  all  out,  down  to  the 


212  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ground.  Her  mother  went  through  the  pros  and  cons  again  and 
again,  and  always  came  to  the  same  conclusion — silence. 

But  for  all  that,  Rosalind  had  a  background  belief  that  a  time 
would  come  when  a  complete  revelation  would  be  possible.  Her 
mind  stipulated  for  a  wider  experience  for  Sally  before  then.  It 
would  be  so  infinitely  easier  to  tell  her  tale  to  one  who  had  herself 
arrived  at  the  goal  of  motherhood,  utterly  unlike  as  (so  she  took 
for  granted)  was  to  be  the  way  of  her  arrival,  sunlit  and  soft  to 
tread,  from  the  black  precipice  and  thorny  wastes  that  had 
brought  her  to  her  own. 

Any  possible  marriage  of  Sally's,  however,  was  a  vague  abstrac- 
tion of  an  indistinct  future.  Perhaps  we  should  say  had  been, 
and  admit  that  since  her  own  marriage  Mrs.  Fenwick  had  begun 
to  be  more  distinctly  aware  that  her  little  daughter  was  now  within 
a  negligible  period  of  the  age  when  her  own  tree  of  happiness  in 
life  had  been  so  curtly  broken  off  short,  and  no  new  leafage 
suffered  to  sprout  upon  the  broken  stem.  This  identity  of  age 
could  not  but  cause  comparison  of  lots.  "Suppose  it  had  been 
Sally!"  was  the  thought  that  would  sometimes  spring  on  her 
mother's  mind;  and  then  the  girl  would  wonder  what  mamma 
was  thinking  of  that  she  should  make  her  arm  that  was  round 
her  tighten  as  though  she  feared  to  lose  her,  or  bring  her  an 
irrelevant,  unanticipated  kiss. 

This  landmark-period  bristled  with  suggested  questions  of 
what  was  to  follow  it.  Sally  would  marry — that  seemed  in- 
evitable; and  her  mother,  now  that  she  was  herself  married 
again,  did  not  shrink  from  the  idea  as  she  had  done,  in  spite  of 
her  protests  against  her  own  selfishness. 

Miss  Sally's  attitude  toward  the  tender  passion  did  not  at 
present  give  any  grounds  for  supposing  that  she  was  secretly  its 
victim,  or  ever  would  be.  Intense  amusement  at  the  perturba- 
tion she  occasioned  to  sensitive  young  gentlemen  seemed  to  be 
the  nearest  approach  to  reciprocating  their  sentiments  that  she 
held  out  any  hopes  of.  She  admitted  as  a  pure  abstraction 
that  it  was  possible  to  be  in  love,  but  regarded  applicants  as 
obstacles  that  stood  in  their  own  way. 

"I'm  sure  his  adoration  does  him  great  credit,"  she  said  to 
Lsetitia  one  day  about  a  new  devotee — for  there  was  no  lack  of 
them.  "But  it's  his  eyes,  and  his  nose,  and  his  mouth,  and  his 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  213 

chin,  and  his  ears,  and  his  hair,  and  his  hands  and  his  feet,  and 
his  altogether  that " 

"That  what?"  asked  her  friend. 

"That  you  can't  expect  a  girl  to  then,  if  you  insist  upon  it." 

"Some  girl  will,  you'll  see,  one  of  these  days." 

"What ! — even  that  man  with  teeth !"  This  was  some  chance 
acquaintance,  useful  for  illustration,  but  not  in  the  story. 
Laetitia  knew  enough  of  him  to  give  a  testimonial. 

"He's  a  very  good  fellow,  whatever  you  may  say !"  said  she. 

"My  dear  Tishy!  Goodness  is  the  distinguishing  feature  of 
the  opposite  sex.  I  speak  as  a  person  of  my  own.  Men's  moral 
qualities  are  always  high.  If  it  wasn't  for  their  appearance, 
and  their  manners,  and  their  defective  intelligences,  they  would 
make  the  most  charming  husbands." 

"How  very  young  you  are!"  Miss  Wilson  said,  superior  ex- 
perience oozing  out  at  every  pore.  Sally  might  have  passed  this 
by,  but  when  it  came  to  patting  you  on  the  cheek,  she  drew  a 
line. 

"Tishy  dear,  do  you  mean  to  go  on  like  that,  when  I'm  a 
hundred  and  you  are  a  hundred  and  five?" 

"Yes,  dear.  At  least,  I  can't  say.  Anything  may  have  hap- 
pened by  then." 

"What  sort  of  thing?  Come,  Tishy,  don't  be  enigmatical. 
For  instance?" 

"You'll  change  your  mind  and  be  wiser — you'll  see."  Which 
might  have  been  consecutive  in  another  conversation.  But  it 
was  insufferably  patronizing  in  Latitia  to  evade  the  centenarian 
forecast  that  should  have  come  in  naturally,  and  retreat  into  a 
vague  abstraction,  managing  to  make  it  appear  (Sally  couldn't 
say  how  or  why)  that  her  own  general  remarks  about  man,  which 
meant  nothing,  were  a  formal  proclamation  of  celibacy  on  her 
part.  It  is  odd  how  little  the  mere  wording  of  a  conversation 
may  convey,  especially  girl's  conversation.  What  is  there  in 
the  above  to  warrant  what  came  next  from  Sally? 

"If  you  mean  Dr.  Vereker,  that's  ridiculous." 

"I  never  mentioned  his  name,  dear." 

"Of  course  you  didn't ;  you  couldn't  have,  and  wouldn't  have. 
But  anybody  could  tell  what  ypu  njeant,  just  the  same,  by 
leaving  your  mouth  open  when  you'd  done  speaking."  We  con- 


214  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

fess  freely  that  we  should  not  have  known,  but  what  are  we? 
Why  should  Laetitia's  having  left  her  lips  slightly  ajar,  instead 
of  closing  them,  have  "meant  Dr.  Vereker"? 

But  the  fact  is — to  quote  an  expression  of  Sally's  own — 
brain-waves  were  the  rule  and  not  the  exception  with  her.  And 
hypnotic  suggestion  raged  as  between  her  and  Miss  Lsetitia 
Wilson,  interrupting  practice,  and  involving  the  performers  in 
wide-ranging,  irrelevant  discussion.  It  was  on  a  musical  occasion 
at  Ladbroke  Grove  Eoad  that  this  conversation  took  place. 

LaBtitia  wasn't  going  to  deny  Dr.  Vereker,  evidently,  or  else 
there  really  was  something  very  engrossing  about  her  G  string. 
Sally  went  on,  while  she  dog's-eared  her  music,  which  was 
new,  to  get  good  turning-over  advantages  when  it  came  to 
playing. 

"My  medical  adviser's  not  bad,  taken  as  an  aunt.  I  don't 
quite  know  what  I  should  do  without  poor  Prosy.  But  as  for 
anything,  of  course  that's  absurd.  Why,  half  the  fun  is  that 
there  isn't  anything!" 

Laetitia  knew  as  well  as  possible  that  her  young  friend,  once 
started,  would  develop  the  subject  on  her  own  lines  without 
further  help  from  her.  She  furnished  her  face  with  a  faint  ex- 
pression of  amused  waiting,  not  strong  enough  to  be  indictable, 
but  operative,  and  said  never  a  word. 

"Foolery  would  spoil  it  all,"  pursued  Sally;  "in  fact,  I  put 
my  foot  down  at  the  first  go-off.  I  pointed  out  that  I  stipulated 
to  be  considered  a  chap.  Prosy  showed  tact — I  must  say  that  for 
Prosy — distinctly  tact.  You  see,  if  I  had  had  to  say  a  single 
word  to  him  on  the  subject,  it  would  have  been  all  up."  Then 
possibly,  in  response  to  a  threat  of  an  inflexion  in  her  friend's 
waiting  countenance,  "I  should  say,  when  I  make  use  of  the  ex- 
pression 'pointed  out/  perhaps  I  ought  to  say  'conveyed  to 
him.' y'  Sally  gets  the  viola  in  place  for  a  start,  and  asks  is  her 
friend  ready?  Waiting,  it  seems;  so  she  merely  adds,  "Yes, 
I  should  say  conveyed  it  to  him."  And  off  they  go  with  the  new 
piece  of  music  in  B  flat,  and  are  soon  involved  in  terrifying  com- 
plications which  have  to  be  done  all  over  again.  At  the  end, 
they  are  ungrateful  to  B  flat,  and  say  they  don't  care  much  for 
it ;  it  will  be  better  when  they  can  play  it,  however.  Then  Laatitia 
Schemes  to  wind  Sally  up  a  little: 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  216 

"Doesn't  the  Goody  goozle  at  you  about  him,  though?  You 
said  she  did." 

"The  Goody — oh  yes!  (By-the-bye,  mother  says  I  mustn't 
call  your  ma  Goody  Wilson,  or  I  shall  do  it  to  her  face,  and 
there'll  be  a  pretty  how-do-you-do.)  Prosy's  parent  broods  over 
one,  and  gloats  as  if  one  was  crumpets ;  but  Prosy  himself  is  very 
good  about  her — aware  of  her  shortcomings." 

"I  don't  care  what  you  call  my  mother.  Call  her  any  name 
you  like.  But  what  does  Dr.  Vereker  say  ?" 

"About  his'n?  Says  she's  a  dear  good  mother,  and  I  mustn't 
mind  her.  I  say,  Tishy!" 

"What,  dear?" 

"What  is  the  present  position  of  the  row?  You  said  your 
mother.  You  know  you  did — coming  from  the  bath — after 
Henriette  went  away." 

"I  did  say  my  mother,  dear.  But  I  wish  it  were  otherwise. 
I've  told  Mr.  Bradshaw  so." 

"You'd  be  much  nicer  if  you  said  Julius.    Told  him  what?" 

"Told  him  a  girl  can't  run  counter  to  the  wishes  of  her  family 
in  practice.  Of  course,  M — well,  then,  Julius,  if  you  will  have  it 
— is  ready  to  wait.  But  it's  really  ridiculous  to  talk  in  this  way, 
when,  after  all,  nothing's  been  said." 

"Has  nothing?" 

"Not  to  anybody.    Only  him  and  me." 

"At  Riverfordhook?" 

"Why,  yes,  what  I  told  you.    We  needn't  go  over  it  again." 

"In  the  avenue.  And  moonrise  and  things.  What  o'clock 
was  it,  please,  ma'am?" 

"About  ten-fifteen,  dear.  We  were  in  by  eleven.**  This  was 
a  faint  attempt  to  help  dignity  by  a  parade  of  accuracy  in  figures, 
and  an  affectation  of  effrontery.  "But  really  we  needn't  go  over 
it  again.  You  know  what  a  nice  letter  he  wrote  Aunt  Frances?" 
And  instead  of  waiting  for  an  answer,  Tishy,  perhaps  to  avoid 
catechism  about  the  moonrise  and  things,  ploughs  straight  on 
into  a  recitation  of  her  lover's  letter  to  her  aunt:  "Dear  Lady 
Sales — Of  course  it  will  (quite  literally)  give  me  the  greatest 
possible  pleasure  to  come.  I  will  bring  the  Strad";  and  then 
afterwards  he  said :  "I  hope  your  niece  will  give  a  full  account 
of  me,  and  not  draw  any  veils  over  my  social  position.  How- 


216  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ever,  this  being  written  at  my  desk  here  on  the  shop-paper  will 
prevent  any  misunderstanding." 

"Your  Aunt  Frances  has  been  hatching  you — you  two !"  says 
Sally,  ignoring  the  letter. 

"She  is  a  dear  good  woman,  if  ever  there  was  one.  I  wish 
mamma  was  my  aunt-by-marriage,  and  she  her!"  And  then 
Lsetitia  went  on  to  tell  many  things  about  the  present  position 
of  the  "row"  between  herself  and  her  mother,  concerning  which 
it  can  only  be  said  that  nothing  transpired  that  justified  its 
existence.  Seeing  that  no  recognition  was  asked  for  of  any 
formal  engagement  either  by  the  "young  haberdasher"  himself 
— for  that  was  the  epithet  applied  to  him  (behind  his  back,  of 
course)  by  the  older  lady — or  by  the  object  of  his  ambitious  aspi- 
rations, it  might  have  been  more  politic,  as  well  as  more  graceful, 
on  her  part,  to  leave  the  affair  to  die  down,  as  love-affairs  un- 
opposed are  so  very  apt  to  do.  Instead  of  which  she  needs  must 
begin  endeavouring  to  frustrate  what  at  the  time  of  her  first 
interference  was  the  merest  flirtation  between  a  Romeo  who  was 
tied  to  a  desk  all  day,  and  a  Juliet  who  was  constantly  coming 
into  contact  with  other  potential  Romeos — plenty  of  them.  Our 
own  private  opinion  is  that  if  the  Montagus  and  Capulets  had 
tried  to  bury  the  hatchet  at  a  public  betrothal  of  the  two  young 
people,  the  latter  would  have  quarrelled  on  the  spot.  Setting 
their  family  circles  by  the  ears  again  would  almost  have  been 
as  much  fun  as  a  secret  wedding  by  a  friar.  You  doubt  it? 
Well,  we  may  be  wrong.  But  we  are  quite  certain  that  the  events 
which  followed  shortly  after  the  chat  between  the  two  girls  re- 
corded above  either  would  never  have  come  to  pass,  or  would 
have  taken  an  entirely  different  form,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
uncompromising  character  of  Mrs.  Sales  Wilson's  attitude  to- 
wards her  daughter's  Romeo. 

We  will  give  this  collateral  incident  in  our  history  a  chapter  to 
itself,  for  your  convenience  more  than  our  own.  You  can  skip 
it,  you  see,  if  you  want  to  get  back  to  Krakatoa  Villa. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

OF  JULIUS  BRADSHAW'S  INNER  SOUL.  AND  OF  THE  HABERDASHER'S  BAT- 
TLE AT  LADBROKE  GROVE  ROAD.  ON  CARPET  STRETCHING,  AND  VAC- 
CINATION FROM  THE  CALF.  AN  AFTER-DINNER  INTERVIEW,  AND  GOOD 
RESOLUTIONS.  EVASIVE  TRAPPISTS 

You  can  remember,  if  you  are  male  and  middle-aged,  or  worse, 
some  little  incident  in  your  own  early  life  more  or  less  like  that 
effervescence  of  unreal  passion  which  made  us  first  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Julius  Bradshaw  and  his  violin.  Do  you  shake  your 
head,  and  deny  it?  Are  you  prepared  to  look  us  in  the  face,  and 
swear  you  never,  when  a  young  man,  had  a  sleepless  night  because 
of  some  girl  whom  you  had  scarcely  spoken  to,  and  who  would  not 
have  known  who  you  were  if  you  had  been  able  to  master  your 
trepidation  and  claim  acquaintance;  and  who,  in  the  sequel, 
changed  her  identity,  and  became  what  the  greatest  word-coiner 
of  our  time  called  a  "speech-friend"  of  yours,  without  a  scrap  of 
romance  or  tenderness  in  the  friendship? 

Sally's  sudden  change  of  identity  from  the  bewitching  little 
gardener  who  had  fascinated  this  susceptible  youth,  to  a  merely 
uncommonly  nice  girl,  was  no  doubt  assisted  by  his  introduction 
just  at  that  moment  to  the  present  Mrs.  Julius  Bradshaw.  For  it 
would  be  the  merest  affectation  to  conceal  the  ultimate  outcome 
of  their  acquaintance. 

When  Julius  came  to  Krakatoa  Villa,  he  came  already  half 
disillusioned  about  Sally.  What  sort  of  an  accolade  he  expected 
on  arriving  to  keep  his  passion  on  its  legs,  Heaven  only  knows! 
He  certainly  had  been  chilled  by  her  easy-going  invitation  to  her 
mother's.  A  definite  declaration  of  callous  indifference  would 
not  have  been  half  so  effective.  Sally  had  the  most  extraor- 
dinary power  of  pointing  out  that  she  stipulated  to  be  con- 
sidered as  a  chap;  or  conveying  it,  which  came  to  the  same  thing. 
On  the  other  hand,  Latitia,  who  had  been  freely  spoken  of  by 
Sally  as  "making  a  great  ass  of  herself  about  social  tommy-rot 

317 


218  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

and  people's  positions/'  and  who  was  aware  of  the  justice  of  the 
accusation,,  had  been  completely  jerked  out  of  the  region  of 
Grundy  by  Julius's  splendid  rendering  of  Tartini,  and  had  felt 
disconcerted  and  ashamed ;  for  Tishy  was  a  thorough  musician  at 
heart.  The  consequence  was  an  amende  honorable  to  the  young 
man,  on  whom — he  having  no  idea  whatever  of  its  provoking 
cause — it  produced  the  effect  that  might  have  been  anticipated. 
Any  young  lady  who  wishes  to  enslave  a  young  man  will  really 
do  better  work  by  showing  an  interest  in  himself  than  by  any 
amount  of  fascination  and  allurement,  on  the  lines  of  Greuze. 
We  are  by  no  means  sure  that  it  is  safe  to  reveal  this  secret,  so 
do  not  let  it  go  any  farther.  Young  women  are  formidable 
enough,  as  it  is,  without  getting  tips  from  the  camp  of  the 
enemy. 

An}-how,  Sally  became  a  totally  different  identity  to  Mr.  Julius 
Bradshaw.  He,  for  his  part,  underwent  a  complete  transforma- 
tion in  hers — so  much  so  that  the  vulgar  child  was  on  one  oc- 
casion quite  taken  aback  at  a  sudden  recollection  of  his  debut, 
and  said  to  her  stepfather:  "Only  think,  Jeremiah!  Tishy's 
Julius  is  really  that  young  idiot  that  came  philandering  after  me 
Sundays,  and  I  had  quite  forgotten  it!" 

The  young  idiot  had  settled  down  to  a  reasonable  personality; 
if  not  to  a  manifestation  of  his  actual  self,  at  any  rate  as  near  as 
he  was  likely  to  go  to  it  for  some  time  to  come;  for  none  of  us 
ever  succeeds  in  really  showing  himself  to  his  fellow-creatures 
outright.  Thafs  impossible. 

Sally  had  never  said  very  much  to  her  friend  of  this  pre- 
introduction  phase  of  Julius — had,  in  fact,  thought  little  enough 
about"  it.  Perhaps  her  taking  care  to  say  nothing  at  all  of  it  in 
his  later  phase  was  her  most  definite  acknowledgment  of  its 
existence  at  any  time.  It  was  only  a  laughable  incident.  She 
saw  at  once,  when  she  took  note  of  that  sofa  seance,  which  way 
the  cat  was  going  to  jump;  and  we  are  bound  to  say  it  was  a  cat 
that  soon  made  up  its  mind,  and  jumped  with  decision. 

Mrs.  Sales  Wilson's  endeavour  to  intercept  that  cat  had  been 
prompt  and  injudicious.  She  destroyed  whatever  chance  there 
was  of  a  sudden  volte-face  on  its  part — and  oh,  the  glorious 
uncertainty  of  this  class  of  cat! — first  by  taking  no  notice  of  it 
aggressively,  next  by  catching  hold  of  its  tail,  too  late.  In.  tk§ 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  219 

art  pf  ignoring  bystanders,  she  was  no  match  for  the  cat.  And 
detention  seemed  only  to  communicate  impetus. 

Julius  Bradshaw's  first  receptions  at  the  Ladbroke  Grove 
House  had  been  based  mainly  on  his  Stradivarius.  The  Dragon 
may  be  said  to  have  admitted  the  instrument,  but  only  to  have 
tolerated  its  owner,  as  one  might  tolerate  an  organman  who 
owned  a  distinguished  monkey.  Still,  the  position  was  an  ambig- 
uous one.  The  Dragon  felt  she  had  made  a  mistake  in  not 
shutting  the  door  against  this  lion  at  first.  She  had  "let  him  in, 
to  see  if  she  could  turn  him  out  again,"  and  the  crisis  of  the 
campaign  had  come  over  the  question  whether  Mr.  Bradshaw 
might,  or  should,  or  could  be  received  into  the  inner  bosom  of 
the  household — that  is  to  say,  the  dinner-bosom.  The  Dragon 
said  no — she  drew  the  line  at  that.  Tea,  yes — dinner, 
no! 

After  many  small  engagements  over  the  question  in  the  ab- 
stract, the  plot  thickened  with  reference  to  the  arrangements  of 
a  particular  Thursday  evening.  The  Dragon  felt  that  a  decisive 
battle  must  be  fought;  the  more  so  that  her  son  Egerton,  whom 
she  had  relied  on  to  back  her  against  a  haberdasher,  though  he 
might  have  been  useless  against  a  jockey  or  a  professional 
cricketer,  had  gone  over  to  the  enemy,  and  announced  (for  the 
Professor  had  failed  to  communicate  the  virus  of  scholarship 
to  this  young  man)  that  he  was  unanimous  that  Mr.  Bradshaw 
should  be  forthwith  invited  to  dinner. 

His  mother  resorted  to  the  head  of  the  household  as  to  a  Court 
of  Appeal,  but  not,  as  we  think,  in  a  manner  likely  to  be  effective. 
Her  natural  desire  to  avenge  herself  on  that  magazine  of  learning 
for  marrying  her  produced  an  unconciliatory  tone,  even  in  her 
preamble. 

"I  suppose,"  she  said,  abruptly  entering  his  library  in  the  vital 
centre  of  a  delectable  refutation  of  an  ignoramus — "I  suppose 
it's  no  use  looking  to  you  for  sympathy  in  a  matter  of  this  sort, 
but " 

"I'm  busy,"  said  the  Professor;  "wouldn't  some  other  time 
do  as  well?" 

"I  knew  what  I  had  to  expect!"  said  the  lady,  at  once  allowing 
her  desire  to  embitter  her  relations  with  her  husband  to  get  the 

better  of  h^r  interest  in  the  measure  she  desired  to  pass  through 


220  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Parliament.  She  left  the  room,  closing  the  door  after  her  with 
venomous  quietness. 

The  refutation  would  have  to  stand  over;  it  was  spoiled  now, 
and  the  delicious  sarcasm  that  was  on  his  pen's  tip  was  lost 
irrevocably.  He  blotted  a  sentence  in  the  middle,  put  his  pen  in 
a  wet  sponge,  and  opened  his  door.  He  jerked  it  savagely  open 
to  express  his  attitude  of  mind  towards  interruption.  His  "What 
is  it?"  as  he  did  so  was  in  keeping  with  the  door- jerk. 

"I  can  speak  of  nothing  to  you  if  you  are  so  tetchy" — a  word 
said  spitefully,  with  a  jerk  explanatory  of  its  meaning.  "An- 
other time  will  do  better,  now.  I  prefer  to  wait." 

When  these  two  played  at  the  domestic  game  of  exasperate-my- 
neighbour,  the  temper  lost  by  the  one  was  picked  up  by  the  other, 
and  added  to  his  or  her  pack.  It  was  so  often  her  pack  that 
there  must  have  been  an  unfair  allotment  of  knaves  in  it  when 
dealt — you  know  what  that  means  in  beggar-my-neighbour?  On 
this  occasion  Mrs.  Wilson  won  heavily.  It  was  not  every  day 
that  she  had  a  chance  of  showing  her  great  forbearance  and  self- 
restraint,  on  the  stairs  to  an  audience  of  a  man  in  leather  knee- 
caps who  was  laying  a  new  drugget  in  the  passage,  and  a  model  of 
discretion  with  a  dustpan,  whose  self -subordination  was  beyond 
praise;  her  daughter  Athene  in  the  passage  below  inditing  her 
son  Egerton  for  a  misappropriation  of  three-and-fivepence;  and 
a  faint  suspicion  of  Leetitia's  bedroom  door  on  the  jar,  for  her  to 
listen  through,  above. 

It  wasn't  fair  on  the  Professor,  though;  for  even  before  he  ex- 
ploded, his  lady-wife  had  had  ample  opportunity  of  recon- 
noitring the  battle-field,  and,  as  it  were,  negotiating  with  auxili- 
aries, by  a  show  of  gentle  sweetness  which  had  the  force  of 
announcement  that  she  was  being  misunderstood  elsewhere. 
But  she  would  bear  it,  conscious  of  rectitude.  Now,  the  Professor 
didn't  know  there  was  any  one  within  hearing;  so  he  snapped, 
and  she  bit  him  sotto  voce,  but  raised  a  meek  voice  to  follow: 

"Another  time  will  be  better.  I  prefer  to  wait."  This 
was  all  the  public  heard  of  her  speech.  But  she  went  into  the 
library. 

"What  do  you  want  to  speak  to  me  about?"  Thus  the  Pro- 
fessor, remaining  standing  to  enjoin  the  temporary  character  of 
the  interview;  to  countercheck  which  the  lady  sank  in  an  arm- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  221 

chair  with  her  back  to  the  light.  Both  she  and  Laetitia  conveyed 
majesty  in  swoops — filled  up  fauteuils — could  motion  humbler 
people  to  take  a  seat  beside  them.  "Tishy's  Goody  runs  into 
skirts — so  does  she  if  you  come  to  that!"  was  Sally's  marginal 
note  on  this  point.  The  countercheck  was  effectual,  and  from 
her  position  of  vantage  the  lady  fired  her  first  shot. 

"You  know  perfectly  well  what  I  want  to  speak  about."  The 
awkward  part  of  this  was  that  the  Professor  did  know. 

"Suppose  I  do;  go  on!"  This  only  improved  his  position  very 
slightly,  but  it  compelled  the  bill  to  be  read  a  first  time. 

"Do  you  wish  your  daughter  to  marry  a  haberdasher?" 

"I  do  not.  If  I  did,  I  should  take  her  round  to  some  of  the 
shops." 

But  his  wife  is  in  no  humour  to  be  jested  with.  "If  you  cannot 
be  serious,  Mr.  Wilson,  about  a  serious  matter,  which  concerns 
the  lifelong  well-being  of  your  eldest  daughter,  I  am  only  wasting 
my  time  in  talking  to  you."  She  threatens  an  adjournment  with 
a  slight  move.  Her  husband  selects  another  attitude,  and  comes 
to  business. 

"You  may  just  as  well  say  what  you  have  come  to  say, 
Eoberta.  It's  about  Laetitia  and  this  young  musician  fellow,  I 
suppose.  Why  can't  you  leave  them  alone?"  Now,  you  see,  here 
was  a  little  triumph  for  Roberta — she  had  actually  succeeded  in 
getting  the  subject  into  the  realm  of  discussion  without  commit- 
ting herself  to  any  definite  statement,  or,  in  fact,  really  saying 
what  it  was.  She  could  prosecute  it  now  indirectly,  on  the  lines 
of  congenial  contradiction  of  her  husband. 

"I  fully  expected  to  be  accused  of  interfering  with  what  does 
not  concern  me.  I  am  not  surprised.  My  daughter's  welfare 
is,  it  appears,  to  be  of  as  little  interest  to  me  as  it  is  to  her  father. 
Very  well." 

"What  do  you  wish  me  to  do?  Will  you  oblige  me  by  telling 
me  what  it  is  you  understand  we  are  talking  about  ?"  A  gather- 
ing storm  of  determination  must  be  met,  the  Dragon  decides,  by 
a  corresponding  access  of  asperity  on  her  part.  She  rises  to  the 
occasion. 

"I  will  tell  you  about  what  I  do  not  understand.  But  I  do 
not  expect  to  be  listened  to.  I  do  not  understand  how  any  father 
can  remain  in  his  library,  engaged  in  work  which  cannot  possibly 


222  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

be  remunerative,  while  his  eldest  daughter  contracts  a  disgraceful 
marriage  with  a  social  inferior."  The  irrelevance  about  re- 
muneration was  ill-judged. 

"I  can  postpone  the  Dictionary — if  that  will  satisfy  you — and 
go  on  with  some  articles  for  the  Encyclopaedia,  which  pay  very 
well,  until  after  the  ceremony.  Is  the  date  fixed?" 

"It  is  easy  for  you  to  affect  stupidity,  and  to  answer  me  with 
would-be  witty  evasions.  But  if  you  think  to  deter  me  from  my 
duty — a  mother's  duty — by  such  pitiful  expedients  you  are  mak- 
ing a  great  mistake.  You  make  my  task  harder  to  me,  Septimus, 
but  you  do  not  discourage  me.  You  know  as  well  as  I  do — 
although  you  choose  to  affect  the  contrary — that  what  I  am  say- 
ing does  not  relate  to  any  existing  circumstances,  but  only  to 
what  may  come  about  if  you  persist  in  neglecting  your  duly  to 
your  family.  I  came  into  this  room  to  ask  you  to  exercise  your 
authority  with  your  daughter  Laetitia,  or  if  not  your  authority — 
for  she  is  over  twenty-one — your  influence.  But  I  see  that  I 
shall  get  no  help.  It  is,  however,  what  I  expected — no  more  and 
no  less."  And  the  skirts  rustle  with  an  intention  of  getting  up 
and  going  away  injured. 

Mrs.  Wilson  had  a  case  against  her  husband,  if  not  a  strong 
one.  His  ideas  of  the  duties  of  a  male  parent  were  that  he 
might  incur  paternity  of  an  indefinite  number  of  sons  and 
daughters,  and  discharge  all  his  obligations  to  them  by  providing 
their  food  and  education.  Having  paid  quittance,  he  was  at 
liberty  to  be  absorbed  in  his  books.  Had  his  payments  been 
large  enough  to  make  his  wife's  administration  of  the  household 
easy,  he  might  have  been  justified,  especially  as  she,  for  her 
part,  was  not  disposed  to  allow  him  any  voice  in  any  matter. 
Nevertheless,  she  castigated  him  frightfully  at  intervals  for  not 
exercising  an  authority  she  was  not  prepared  to  permit.  He  was 
nothing  but  a  ninepin,  set  up  to  be  knocked  down,  an  Aunt  Sally 
who  was  never  allowed  to  keep  her  pipe  in  her  mouth  for  ten 
consecutive  seconds.  The  natural  consequence  of  which  was 
that  his  children  despised  him,  but  to  a  certain  extent  loved 
him;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  they  somewhat  disliked  their 
mother,  but  (to  a  certain  extent)  respected  her.  It  is  very  hard 
on  the  historian  and  the  dramatist  that  every  one  is  not  quite 
good  or  quite  bad.  It  would  make  their  work  so  much  easier. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  823 

x 

But  it  would  not  be  nearly  so  interesting,  especially  in  the  case 
of  the  last-named. 

The  Professor  may  have  had  some  feeling  on  these  lines  when 
he  stopped  the  skirts  from  rustling  out  of  the  apartment  by  a 
change  in  his  manner. 

"Tell  me  seriously  what  you  wish  me  to  do,  Roberta." 

"I  wish  you  to  give  attention,  if  not  to  the  affairs — that  I 
cannot  expect — of  your  household,  at  least  to  this — you  may  call 
it  foolish  and  pooh-pooh  it — business  of  Laetitia  and  this  young 
man — I  really  cannot  say  young  gentleman,  for  it  is  mere  equivo- 
cation not  to  call  him  a  haberdasher." 

The  Professor  resisted  the  temptation  to  criticize  some  points 
of  literary  structure,  and  accepted  the  obvious  meaning  of 
this. 

"Tell  me  what  he  really  is." 

"I  have  told  you  repeatedly.  He  is  nothing — unless  we  palter 
with  the  meaning  of  words — but  a  clerk  in  the  office  at  the  stores 
where  we  pay  a  deposit  and  order  goods  on  a  form.  They  were 
originally  haberdashers,  so  I  don't  see  how  you  can  escape  from 
what  I  have  said.  But  I  have  no  doubt  you  will  try  to  do  so." 

"How  comes  he  to  be  such  a  magnificent  violinist?  Are  they 
all  ...  ?" 

"I  know  what  you  are  going  to  say,  and  it's  foolish.  No,  they 
are  not  all  magnificent  violinists.  But  you  know  the  story  quite 
well." 

"Perhaps  I  do.  But  now  listen.  I  want  to  make  out  one 
thing.  This  young  man  talked  quite  freely  to  me  and  Egerton 
about  his  place,  his  position,  salary — everything.  And  yet  you 
say  he  isn't  a  gentleman." 

"Of  course  he  isn't  a  gentleman.  I  don't  the  least  understand 
what  you  mean.  It's  some  prevarication  or  paradox."  Mrs. 
Wilson  taps  the  chair-arm  impatiently. 

"I  mean  this — if  he  isn't  a  gentleman,  how  comes  it  that  he 
isn't  ashamed  of  being  a  haberdasher?  Because  he  isn't. 
Seemed  to  take  it  all  as  a  matter  of  course." 

"I  cannot  follow  your  meaning  at  all.  And  I  will  not  trouble 
you  to  explain  it.  The  question  now  is — will  you,  or  will  you 
not,  do  something?" 

"Has  the  young  gentleman?" — Mrs.  Wilson  snorted  audibly — 


224  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Well,  has  this  young  haberdasher  made  any  sort  of  definite 
declaration  to  Laetitia?" 

"I  understand  not.     But  it's  impossible  not  to  see." 

"Would  it  not  be  a  little  premature  for  me  to  say  anything  to 
him?" 

"Have  I  asked  you  to  do  so?" 

"I  am  a  little  uncertain  what  it  is  you  have  asked  me  to  do." 

Mrs.  Wilson  contrived,  by  pantomime  before  she  spoke,  to 
express  her  perfect  patience  under  extremest  trial,  inflicted  on 
her  by  an  impudent  suggestion  that  she  hadn't  made  her  position 
clear.  She  would,  however,  state  her  case  once  more  with  inci- 
sive distinctness.  To  that  end  she  separated  her  syllables,  and 
accented  selections  from  them,  even  as  a  resolute  hammer  accents 
the  head  of  a  nail. 

"Have  I  not  told  you  distinctly" — the  middle  syllable  of  this 
word  was  a  sample  nailhead — "a  thousand  times  that  what  I 
wish  you  to  do — however  much  you  may  shirk  doing  it — is  to 
speak  to  Laetitia — to  remonstrate  with  her  about  the  encourage- 
ment she  is  giving  to  this  young  man,  and  to  point  out  to  her  that 
a  girl  in  her  position — in  short,  the  duties  of  a  girl  in  her  posi- 
tion?" Mrs.  Wilson's  come-down  at  this  point  was  an  example 
of  a  solemn  warning  to  the  elocutionist  who  breaks  out  of 
bounds.  She  was  obliged  to  fall  back  arbitrarily  on  her  key-note 
in  the  middle  of  the  performance.  "Have  I  said  this  to  you,  Mr. 
Wilson,  or  have  I  not?" 

"Speaking  from  memory  I  should  say  not.  Yes — certainly 
not.  But  I  can  raise  no  reasonable  objection  to  speaking  to 
Lffititia,  provided  I  am  at  liberty  to  say  what  I  like.  I  under- 
stand that  to  be  part  of  the  bargain." 

"If  you  mean,"  says  the  lady,  whose  temper  had  not  been 
improved  by  the  first  part  of  the  speech;  "if  you  mean  that  you 
consider  yourself  at  liberty  to  encourage  a  rebellious  daughter 
against  her  mother,  I  know  too  well  from  old  experience  that 
that  is  the  case.  But  I  trust  that  for  once  your  right  feeling  will 
show  you  that  it  is  your  plain  duty  to  tell  her  that  the  course  she 
is  pursuing  can  only  lead  to  the  loss  of  her  position  in  society, 
and  probably  to  poverty  and  unhappiness." 

"I  can  tell  her  you  think  so,  of  course,"  says  the  Professor, 
drily. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  2-2J 

"I  will  say  no  more" — very  freezingly.  "You  know  as  well 
as  I  do  what  it  is  your  duty  to  say  to  your  daughter.  What  you 
will  decide  to  say,  I  do  not  know."  And  premonitory  rustles 
end  in  a  move  to  the  door. 

"You  can  tell  her  to  come  in  now — if  you  like."  The  Pro- 
fessor won't  show  too  vivid  an  interest.  It  isn't  as  if  the  matter 
related  to  a  Scythian  war-chariot,  or  a  gold  ornament  from  a  pre- 
historic tomb,  or  varies  lectiones. 

"At  least,  Septimus,"  says  the  apex  of  the  departing  skirts, 
"you  will  remember  what  is  due  to  yourself  and  your  family — 
I  am  nobody — so  far  as  not  to  encourage  the  girl  in  resisting  her 
mother's  authority."  And,  receiving  no  reply,  departs,  and  is 
heard  on  the  landing  rejecting  insufficient  reasons  why  the  drug- 
get will  not  lay  flat.  And  presently  issuing  a  mandate  to  an 
upper  landing: 

"Your  father  wishes  to  speak  to  you  in  his  library.  7  wish 
you  to  go."  The  last  words  not  to  seem  to  abdicate  as  Queen 
Consort. 

Laetitia  isn't  a  girl  whom  we  find  new  charms  in  after  making 
her  mother's  acquaintance.  You  know  how  some  young  people 
would  be  passable  enough  if  it  were  not  for  a  lurid  light  thrown 
upon  their  identity  by  other  members  of  their  family.  You 
know  the  sister  you  thought  was  a  beauty  and  dear,  until  you 
met  her  sister,  who  was  gristly  and  a  jade.  But  it's  a  great 
shame  in  Tishy's  case,  because  we  do  honestly  believe  her  seeming 
da  capo  of  her  mother  is  more  skirts  than  anything  else.  We 
credit  their  respective  apices  with  different  dispositions,  although 
(yes,  it's  quite  true  what  you  say)  we  don't  see  exactly  from  what 
corner  of  the  Professor's  his  daughter  got  her  better  one.  He's 
all  very  well,  but  .  .  . 

Anyhow,  we  are  sorry  for  Tishy  now,  as  she  comes  uneasily 
into  the  library  to  be  "spoken  to."  She  comes  in  buttoning  a 
glove  and  saying,  "Yes,  papa."  She  was  evidently  just  going 
out — probably  arrested  by  the  voices  in  the  library. 

"Well,  my  dear,  your  mother  wishes  me  to  speak  to  you.  .  .  . 
H'm!  h'm!  By-the-bye,"  he  interrupts  himself,  "it  really  is  a 
very  extraordinary  thing,  but  it's  just  like  work-people.  A  man 
spends  all  his  life  laying  carpets,  and  the  minute  he  lays  mine  ifs 
too  big  or  too  small." 


226  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"The  man  outside?  He's  very  tiresome.  He  says  the  passage 
is  an  unusual  size." 

"I  should  have  taken  that  point  when  I  measured  it.  It  seems 
to  me  late  in  the  day  now  the  carpet's  made  up.  However,  that's 
neither  here  nor  there.  Your  mother  wishes  me  to — a — to  speak 
to  you,  my  dear/' 

"What  does  she  want  you  to  say,  papa?" 

"H'm — well! — it's  sometimes  not  easy  to  understand  your 
mother.  I  cannot  say  that  I  have  gathered  precisely  what  it  is 
she  wishes  me  to  say.  Nor  am  I  certain  that  I  should  be  pre- 
pared to  say  it  if  I  knew  what  it  was." — Tishy  brightened 
perceptibly. — "But  I  am  this  far  in  sympathy  with  what  I  sup- 
pose to  be  her  meaning" — Tishy's  face  fell — "that  I  should  be 
very  sorry  to  hear  that  you  had  made  any  binding  promises  to 
any  young  gentleman  without  knowing  more  of  his  antecedents 
and  connexions  than  I  suppose  you  do  at  the  present  about  this — 
a — musical  friend  of  yours — without  consulting  me."  The 
perfunctory  tone  in  which  he  added,  "and  your  mother,"  made 
the  words  hardly  worth  recording. 

But  perhaps  the  way  they,  in  a  sense,  put  the  good  lady  out  of 
court,  helped  to  make  her  daughter  brighten  up  again.  "Dear 
papa,"  she  said,  "I  should  never  dream  for  one  moment  of  doing 
such  a  thing.  NOT  would  Mr.  Bradshaw  dream  of  asking  me  to 
do  so." 

"That's  quite  right,  my  dear — quite  enough.  Don't  say  any- 
thing more.  I  am  not  going  to  catechize  you."  And  Tishy  was 
not  sorry  to  hear  this,  because  her  disclaimer  of  a  binding  promise 
was  only  true  in  the  letter.  In  fact,  our  direct  Sally  had  only  the 
day  before  pounced  upon  her  friend  with,  "You  know  perfectly 
well  he's  kissed  you  heaps  of  times!"  And  Tishy  had  only  been 
able  to  begin  an  apology  she  was  not  to  be  allowed  to  finish  with, 
"And  suppose  he  has  .  .  .  ?" 

However,  her  sense  of  an  untruthfulness  that  was  more  than 
merely  technical  was  based  not  so  much  on  the  bare  fact  of  a 
kissing-relation  having  come  about,  as  upon  a  particular  example. 
She  knew  it  was  the  merest  hypocrisy  to  make  believe  that  the 
climax  of  that  interview  at  Riverfordhook,  where  there  were  the 
moonrise  and  things,  did  not  constitute  a  pledge  on  the  part  of 
both.  However,  Tishy  is  not  the  first  young  lady,  let  me  tell 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  227 

you — if  you  don't  know  already — who  has  been  guilty  of  equivo- 
cation on  those  lines.  It  is  even  possible  that  her  father  was 
conniving  at  it,  was  intentionally  accepting  what  he  knew  to  be 
untrue,  to  avoid  the  trouble  of  further  investigation,  and  to  be 
able  to  give  his  mind  to  the  demolition  of  that  ignoramus.  A 
certain  amount  of  fuss  was  his  duty;  but  the  sooner  he  could  find 
an  excuse  to  wash  his  hands  of  these  human  botherations  and  get 
back  to  his  inner  life  the  better. 

Perhaps  it  was  a  sense  of  chill  at  the  suspicion  that  her  father 
was  not  concerned  enough  about  her  welfare  that  made  La3titia 
try  to  arrest  his  retirement  into  his  inner  life.  Or  it  may  have 
been  that  she  was  sensitive,  as  young  folk  are,  at  her  new  and 
strange  experience  of  Real  Love,  and  at  the  same  time  grated 
on — scraped  the  wrong  way — in  her  harsh  collision  with  her 
mother,  who  was  showing  Cupid  no  quarter,  and  was  only  with- 
held from  overt  acts  of  hostility  to  Julius  Bradshaw  by  the 
knowledge  that  excess  on  her  part  would  precipitate  what  she 
sought  to  avert. 

Whatever  the  cause  was,  her  momentary  sense  of  relief  that 
her  father  was  not  going  to  catechize  her  was  followed  by  a  feel- 
ing that  she  almost  wished  he  would.  It  would  be  so  nice  to  have 
a  natural  parent  that  was  really  interested  in  his  daughter's 
affairs.  Poor  Tishy  felt  lonely,  and  as  if  she  was  going  to  cry. 
She  must  unpack  her  heart,  even  if  it  bored  papa,  who  she  knew 
wanted  to  turn  her  out  and  write.  She  broke  down  over  it. 

"Oh,  papa — papa!  Indeed,  I  want  to  do  everything  you  wish 
— whatever  you  tell  me.  I  will  be  good,  as  we  used  to  say." 
A  sob  grew  in  her  throat  over  this  little  nursery  recollection. 
"Only — only — only — it  isn't  really  quite  true  about  no  promises. 
We  haven't  made  them,  you  know,  but  they're  there  all  the  same." 
Tishy  stops  suddenly  to  avoid  a  sob  she  knows  is  coming.  A 
pocket-handkerchief  is  called  in  to  remove  tears  surreptitiously, 
under  a  covering  pretence  of  a  less  elegant  function.  The  Pro- 
fessor hates  scenes  worse  than  poison,  and  Tishy  knows  it. 

"There,  there!  Well,  well!  Nothing  to  cry  about.  That's 
right."  This  is  approval  of  the  disappearance  of  the  pocket- 
handkerchief — some  confusion  between  cause  and  effect,  per- 
haps. "Come,  my  child — come,  Laetitia — suppose  now  you  tell 
me  all  about  it." 


228  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Tishy  acknowledges  to  herself  that  she  desires  nothing  better. 
Yes,  papa  dear,  she  will,  indeed  she  will,  tell  him  everything. 
And  then  makes  a  very  fair  revelation  of  her  love-affair — a  little 
dry  and  stilted  in  the  actual  phrasing,  perhaps,  but  then,  what 
can  you  expect  when  one's  father  is  inclined  to  be  stiff  and  awk- 
ward in  such  a  matter,  to  approach  it  formally,  and  consider  it 
an  interview?  It  was  all  mamma's  fault,  of  course.  Why  should 
she  be  summoned  before  the  bar  of  the  house?  Why  couldn't  her 
father  find  his  way  into  her  confidence  in  the  natural  current  of 
events?  However,  this  was  better  than  nothing. 

Besides,  we  softened  gradually  as  we  developed  the  subject. 
One  of  us,  who  was  Mr.  Bradshaw  at  first,  became  Julius  later, 
with  a  strong  lubricating  effect.  We  began  with  sincere  attach- 
ment, but  we  loved  each  other  dearly  before  we  had  done.  We 
didn't  know  when  "it"  began  exactly — which  was  a  fib,  for  we 
were  perfectly  well  aware  that  "it"  began  that  evening  at  Kra- 
katoa  Villa,  which  has  been  chronicled  herein— but  for  a  long 
time  past  Julius  had  been  asking  to  be  allowed  to  memorialise 
the  Professor  on  the  subject. 

"But  you  know,  papa  dear,  I  couldn't  say  he  was  to  speak  to 
you  until  I  was  quite  certain  of  myself.  Besides,  I  did  want  him 
to  be  on  better  terms  with  mamma  first." 

Professor  Wilson  flushed  angrily,  and  began  with  a  knitted 

brow,  "I  wish  your  mother  would "  but  stopped  abruptly. 

Then,  calming  down:  "But  you  are  quite  certain  now,  my  dear 
Lffititia?"  Oh  dear,  yes;  no  doubt  of  that.  And  how  about 
Julius?  The  confident  ring  of  the  girl's  laugh,  and  her  "Why, 
you  should  hear  him!"  showed  that  she,  at  least,  was  well  satisfied 
of  her  lover's  earnestness. 

"Well,  my  dear  child,"  said  the  Professor,  who  was  beginning 
to  feel  that  it  was  time  to  go  back  to  his  unfinished  ignoramus, 
tyro,  or  sciolist;  "I  tell  you  what  I  shall  do.  When's  he  coming 
next?  Thursday,  to  dinner.  Very  well.  I  shall  make  a  little 
opportunity  for  a  quiet  talk  with  him,  and  we  shall  see." 

The  young  lady  came  out  of  the  library  on  the  whole  com- 
fortabler  then  she  had  entered  it,  and  finished  buttoning  that 
glove  in  the  passage.  As  she  stood  reflecting  that  papa  would 
really  be  very  nice  if  he  would  shave  more  carefully — for  the 
remains  of  his  adieu  was  still  rasping  her  cheek — she  was  aware 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  229 

of  the  voice  of  the  carpet;  she  heard  it  complain,  through  the 
medium  of  its  layer,  or  stretcher,  who  seemed  to  mean  to  pass 
the  remainder  of  his  days  scratching  the  head  of  perplexity  on 
the  scene  of  his  recent  failure  to  add  to  his  professional  achieve- 
ments. 

"It's  what  I  say  to  the  guv'nor" — thus  ran  his  Jeremiad — 
"in  dealin'  with  these  here  irregular  settings  out,  where  nothin's 
not  to  say  parallel  with  anything  else,  nor  dimensions  lendin' 
theirselves  to  accommodation.  'Just  you  let  me  orfer  it  in,'  I 
says  'afore  the  final  stitchin'  to,  or  even  a  paper  template  in 
extra  cases  is  a  savin'  in  the  end/  Because  it  stands  to  reason 
there  goes  more  expense  with  an  ill-cut  squint  or  obtoose  angle, 
involvin'  work  to  rectify,  than  cut  ackerate  in  the  first  go-off. 
Not  but  what  ruckles  may  disappear  under  the  tread,  only  there's 
no  reliance  to  be  placed.  You  may  depend  on  it,  to  make  a  job 
there's  nothin'  like  careful  plannin',  and  foresight  in  the  manner 
of  speakin'.  And,  as  I  say  to  the  guv'nor,  there's  no  need  for  a 
stout  brown-paper  template  to  go  to  waste,  seein'  it  works  in  with 
the  under-packin'."  And  much  more  which  Tishy  could  still 
hear  murmuring  on  in  the  distance  as  she  closed  the  street  door 
and  fled  to  an  overdue  appointment  with  Sally,  into  whose  sym- 
pathetic ear  she  could  pour  all  her  new  records  of  the  progress  of 
the  row. 

To  tell  the  whole  of  the  prolonged  pitched  battle  that  ensued 
would  take  too  much  ink  and  paper.  The  Dragon  fought  mag- 
nificently, so  long  as  she  had  the  powerful  backing  of  her  married 
daughter,  Mrs.  Sowerby  Bagster,  and  the  ekirmishing  help  of 
Athene.  This  latter  was,  however,  not  to  be  relied  on — might 
go  over  to  the  enemy  any  moment.  Mrs.  Bagster,  or  Clarissa, 
who  was  an  elder  sister  of  Laetitia's,  became  lukewarm,  too,  on 
a  side-issue  being  raised.  It  did  not  appear  to  connect  itself 
logically  with  the  bone  of  contention,  having  reference  entirely 
to  vaccination  from  the  calf.  But  it  led  to  an  exaggerated 
sensitiveness  on  her  part  as  to  the  responsibility  we  incurred  by 
interference  with  what  might  (after  all)  be  the  Will  of  Provi- 
dence. If  this  should  prove  so,  it  would  be  our  duty  not  to 
repine.  Clarissa  contrived  to  surround  the  subject  with  an 
unprovoked  halo  of  religious  meekness,  and  to  work  round  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  would  be  presumptuous  not  to  ask  Mr.  Brad- 


230  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

shaw  to  dinner.  Only  this  resulted  absolutely  and  entirely  from 
her  refusing  to  have  her  three  children  all  vaccinated  from  the 
calf  forthwith,  because  their  grandmother  thought  it  necessary. 
The  latter,  rinding  herself  deserted  in  her  hour  of  need  by  a 
powerful  ally — for  three  whole  children  had  given  Clarissa  a 
deep  insight  into  social  ethics,  and  a  weighty  authority — sur- 
rendered grudgingly.  She  tried  her  best  to  make  her  invitation 
to  dinner  take  the  form  of  leave  to  come  to  dinner,  and  partly 
succeeded.  Her  suggestions  that  she  hoped  Mr.  Bradshaw  would 
understand  the  rules  of  the  game  at  the  table  of  Society  caused 
the  defection  of  her  remaining  confederate,  Athene,  who  turned 
against  her,  exclaiming:  "He  won't  eat  with  his  knife,  at  any 
rate!"  However,  it  was  too  late  to  influence  current  events. 
The  battle  was  fought  and  over. 

The  obnoxious  young  man  didn't  eat  with  his  knife  when  he 
came,  with  docility,  a  day  after  he  received  the  invitation.  Ke- 
member,  he  appears  originally  in  this  story  as  a  chosen  of  Cat- 
tley's,  one  warranted  to  defy  detection  by  the  best-informed 
genteelologist.  He  went  through  his  ordeal  very  well,  on  the 
whole,  considering  that  Egerton  (from  friendship)  was  always 
on  the  alert  to  give  him  tips  about  civilised  conduct,  and  that 
Mrs.  Wilson  called  him  nearly  every  known  dissyllabic  name  with 
A'a  in  it — Brathwaite,  Palgrave,  Bradlaugh,  Play  fair,  and  so  on, 
but  not  Bradshaw.  She  did  this  the  more  as  she  never  addressed 
him  directly,  treating  him  without  disguise  as  the  third-person 
singular  in  a  concrete  form.  This  was  short-sighted,  because  it 
stimulated  her  husband  to  a  tone  of  civility  which  would  prob- 
ably have  risen  to  deference  if  the  good  lady  had  not  just  stopped 
short  of  insult. 

Egerton  and  the  only  other  male  guest  (who  was  the  negative 
young  pianist  known  to  Sally  as  Somebody  Elsley)  having  found 
it  convenient  to  go  away  at  smoking-time  to  inspect  the  latter's 
bicycle,  the  Professor  seized  his  opportunity  for  conversation 
with  the  third-person-singular.  He.  approached  the  subject 
abruptly: 

"Well,  if  s  Lffititia,  I  understand,  that  we're  making  up  to, 
eh?"  Perhaps  it  was  this  sudden  conversion  to  the  first  per- 
son plural  that  made  the  young  man  blush  up  to  the  roots  of  his 
hair. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  231 

"What  can  I  say?"  he  asked  hesitatingly.  "You  see,  Pro- 
fessor Wilson,  if  I  say  yes,  it  will  mean  that  I  have  been  p-paying 
my  addresses,  as  the  phrase  is.  .  .  ." 

"And  taking  receipts?" 

"Exactly — and  taking  receipts,  without  first  asking  her  father's 
leave.  And  if  I  say  no " 

"If  you  say  no,  my  dear  young  man,  her  father  will  merely 
ask  you  to  help  yourself  and  pass  the  port  (decanter  with  the 
little  brass  ticket — yes,  that  one.  Thank  you!).  Well,  I  see 
what  you  mean,  and  we  needn't  construct  enigmas.  We  really 
get  to  the  point.  Now  tell  me  all  about  it."  We  don't  feel  at 
all  sure  the  Professor's  way  of  getting  to  the  point  was  not  a  good 
one.  You  see,  he  had  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  young  men  in 
early  academical  phases  of  existence — tutorships  and  the  like — 
and  had  no  idea  of  humming  and  hawing  and  stuttering  over 
their  affairs.  Besides,  it  was  best  for  Bradshaw,  as  was  shown 
by  the  greater  ease  with  which  he  went  on  speaking,  and  began 
telling  the  Professor  all  about  it. 

"I  shouldn't  be  speaking  truthfully,  sir,  if  I  were  to  pretend 
things  haven't  gone  a  little  beyond — a  little  beyond — the 
exact  rules.  But  you've  no  idea  how  easily  one  can  deceive 
oneself." 

"Haven't  I?"  The  Professor's  mind  went  back  to  his  own 
youth.  He  knew  very  well  how  easily  he  had  done  it.  A  swift 
dream  of  his  past  shot  through  his  brain  in  the  little  space  before 
Bradshaw  resumed. 

"Well,  it  was  only  a  phrase.  Of  course  you  know.  I  mean 
it  has  all  crept  on  so  imperceptibly.  And  I  have  had  no  real 
chance  of  talking  about  it — to  you,  sir — without  asking  for  a 
formal  interview.  And  until  very  lately  nothing  Last — Miss 
Wilson  .  .  ." 

"Tut-tut!  Lffititia — Laetitia.  What's  the  use  of  being  prigs 
about  it?" 

"Nothing  Leetitia  has  said  would  have  warranted  me  in  doing 
this.  I  could  have  introduced  the  subject  to  Mrs.  Wilson  once 
or  twice,  but  .  .  ." 

"All  right.  I  understand.  Well,  now,  what's  the  exact  state 
of  things  between  you  and  Lajtitia?" 

"You  will  guess  what  our  wishes  are.     But  we  know  quite 


232  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

well  that  their  fulfilment  is  at  present  impossible.  It  may  re- 
main so.  I  have  no  means  at  present  except  a  small  salary. 
And  my  mother  and  sister " 

"Have  a  claim  on  you — is  that  it?"  The  Professor's  voice 
seems  to  forestall  a  forbidding  sound.  But  he  won't  be  in  too 
great  a  hurry.  He  continues:  "You  must  have  some  possibility 
in  view,  some  sort  of  expectation." 

Bradshaw's  reply  hesitated  a  good  deal. 

"I  am  afraid  I  have — I  am  afraid — allowed  myself  to  fancy — 
that,  in  short,  I  might  be  able  to — outgrow  this  unhappy  nervous 
affection." 

"And  then?" 

"I  know  what  you  mean,  Professor  Wilson.  You  mean  that 
a  violinist's  position,  however  successful,  would  be  less  than  you 
have  a  right  to  expect  for  your  daughter's  husband.  Of  course 
that  is  so,  but " 

"But  I  mean  nothing  of  the  sort."  The  Professor  is  abrupt 
and  decisive,  as  one  who  repudiates.  "I  know  nothing  about 
positions.  However,  Mr.  Bradshaw,  you  are  quite  right  this 
far — that  is  what  Mrs.  Wilson  would  have  meant.  She  knows 
about  positions.  What  I  meant  was  that  you  wouldn't  have 
enough  to  live  upon  at  the  best,  in  any  comfort,  and  that  I 
shouldn't  be  able  to  help  you.  Suppose  you  had  a  large  family, 
and  the  nervous  affection  came  back?"  His  hearer  quakes  at 
this  crude,  unfeeling  forecast  of  real  matrimonial  facts.  He  and 
Laetitia  fully  recognise  in  theory  that  people  who  marry  incur 
families;  but,  like  every  other  young  couple,  would  prefer  a 
veil  drawn  over  their  particular  case.  The  young  man  flinches 
visibly  at  the  Professor's  needlessly  savage  hypothesis  of  dis- 
asters. Had  he  been  a  rapid  and  skilful  counsel  in  his  own 
behalf,  he  would  have  at  once  pounced  on  a  weak  point,  and  asked 
how  many  couples  would  ever  get  married  at  all,  if  we  were  to 
beg  and  borrow  every  trouble  the  proper  people  (whoever  they 
are)  are  ready  to  give  away  and  lend.  He  can  only  look  crest- 
fallen, and  feel  about  in  his  mind  for  some  way  of  saying,  "If  I 
wanted  Laetitia  to  promise  to  marry  me,  that  would  apply.  As 
matters  stand,  it  is  not  to  the  purpose,"  without  seeming  to 
indite  the  Professor  for  prematureness.  Of  course,  the  position 
had  been  created  entirely  by  the  Dragon.  Why  could  she  not 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  233 

have  let  them  alone,  as  her  husband  had  said  to  her?  Why  not, 
indeed? 

But  Master  Julius  has  to  see  his  way  out  into  the  open,  and  he 
is  merely  looking  puzzled,  and  letting  a  very  fair  cigar  out — and, 
you  know,  they  are  never  the  same  thing  relighted.  Perhaps 
what  he  does  is  as  good  as  anything  else. 

"I  see  you  are  right,  sir,  and  I  am  afraid  I  am  to  blame — I 
must  be — because  my  selfish  thoughtlessness,  or  whatever  it  ought 
to  be  called,  has  placed  us  in  a  position  out  of  which  no  happiness 
can  result  for  either?"  He  looks  interrogatively  into  the  Pro- 
fessor's gold  spectacles,  but  sees  no  relaxation  in  the  slightly 
knitted  brow  above  them.  Their  owner  merely  nods. 

"But  you  needn't  take  all  the  blame  to  yourself,"  he  says. 
"I've  no  doubt  my  daughter  is  entitled  to  her  share  of  it" — to 
which  Bradshaw  tries  to  interpose  a  denial — "only  it  really 
doesn't  matter  whose  fault  it  is." 

The  disconcerted  lover,  who  felt  all  raw,  public,  and  uncom- 
fortable, wondered  a  little  what  the  precise  "it"  was  that  could 
be  said  to  be  any  one's  fault.  After  all,  he  and  Laetitia  were  just 
two  persons  going  on  existing,  and  how  could  it  be  any  concern 
of  any  one  else's  what  each  thought  of  or  felt  for  the  other? 
It  is  true  he  lacked  absolution  for  the  kissing  transgressions; 
they  were  blots  on  a  clean  sheet  of  mere  friendship.  But  would 
the  Dragon  be  content  that  he  and  Laetitia  should  continue  to 
see  each  other  if  they  signed  a  solemn  agreement  that  there  was 
to  be  no  kissing?  You  see,  he  was  afraid  he  was  going  to  be  cut 
off  from  his  lady-love,  and  he  didn't  like  the  looks  of  the  Pro- 
fessor. But  he  didn't  propose  the  drawing  up  of  any  such  com- 
pact. Perhaps  he  didn't  feel  prepared  to  sign  it.  However,  he 
was  to  be  relieved  from  any  immediate  anxiety.  The  Professor 
had  never  meant  to  take  any  responsibility,  and  now  that  he  had 
said  his  say,  he  only  wanted  to  wash  his  hands  of  it. 

"Now,  understand  me,  Bradshaw,"  said  he — and  there  was 
leniency  and  hope  in  the  dropped  "Mr." — "I  do  not  propose  to 
do  more  than  advise;  nor  do  I  know,  as  my  daughter  is  twenty- 
four,  what  I  can  do  except  advise.  We  won't  bring  authority 
into  court.  .  .  .  Oh  yes,  no  doubt  Laetitia  believes  she  will  never 
act  against  my  wishes.  Many  girls  have  thought  that  sort  of 
thing.  But "  He  stopped  dead,  with  a  little  side-twist  of 


234  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

the  head,  and  a  lip-pinch,  expressing  doubt,  then  resumed:  "So 
I'll  give  you  my  advice,  and  you  can  think  it  over.  It  is  that 
you  young  people  just  keep  out  of  each  other's  way,  and  let  the 
thing  die  out.  You've  no  idea  till  you  try  what  a  magical  effect 
absence  has;  poetry  is  all  gammon.  Take  my  advice,  and  try  it. 
Have  some  more  port?  No — thank  me!  Then  let's  go  upstairs." 

Upstairs  were  to  be  found  all  the  materials  for  an  uncomfort- 
able evening.  A  sort  of  wireless  telegraphy  that  passed  between 
Bradshaw  and  Lsetitia  left  both  in  low  spirits.  They  did  not  rise 
(the  spirits)  when  the  Professor  said,  to  the  public  generally, 
"Well,  I  must  say  good-night,  but  you  needn't  go,"  and  went 
away  to  his  study;  nor  when  his  Dragon  followed  him,  with  a 
strong  flavour  of  discipline  on  her.  For  thereupon  it  became 
necessary  to  ignore  conflict  in  the  hinterland  of  some  folding- 
doors,  accompanied  by  sounds  of  forbearance  and  a  high  moral 
attitude.  There  was  no  remedy  but  music,  and  as  soon  as  Brad- 
shaw got  at  his  Stradivarius  the  mists  seemed  to  disperse.  The 
adagio  of  Somebody's  quartette  No.  101  seemed  to  drive  a  coach- 
and-six  through  mortal  bramble-labyrinths.  But  as  soon  as  it 
ceased,  the  mists  came  back  all  the  thicker  for  being  kept  waiting. 
And  the  outcome  of  a  winding-up  interview  between  the  sweet- 
hearts was  the  conclusion  that  after  what  had  been  said  by  the 
father  of  one  of  them,  it  was  necessary  that  all  should  be  for- 
gotten, and  be  as  though  it  had  never  been.  And  the  gentleman 
next  day,  when  he  showed  himself  at  his  desk  at  Cattley's,  pro- 
voked the  remark  that  Paganini  had  got  the  hump  this  morning 
— which  shows  that  his  genius  as  a  violinist  was  recognised  at 
Cattley's. 

As  for  the  lady,  we  rather  think  she  made  up  her  mind  in 
the  course  of  the  night  that  if  her  family  were  going  to  inter- 
fere with  her  love-affairs,  she  would  let  them  know  what  it  was 
to  have  people  yearning  for  other  people  in  the  house.  For  she 
refused  boiled  eggs,  eggs  and  bacon,  cold  salmon-trout,  and 
potted  tongue  at  breakfast  next  day,  and  left  half  a  piece  of  toast 
and  half  a  cup  of  tea  as  a  visible  record  that  she  had  started 
pining,  and  meant  to  do  it  in  earnest. 

What  Lastitia  and  Julius  suffered  during  their  self-inflicted 
separation,  Heaven  only  knows!  This  saying  must  be  inter- 
preted as  meaning  that  nobody  else  did.  They  were  like  evasive 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  235 

Trappist  monks,  who  profess  mortification  of  the  flesh,  but  when 
it  comes  to  the  scratch,  don't  flog  fair.  Whatever  they  lost  in 
the  cessation  of  uncomfortable  communion  at  the  eyrie,  or  lair, 
of  the  Dragon  was  more  than  made  up  for  by  the  sub-rosaceous, 
or  semi-clandestine,  character  of  the  intercourse  that  was  left. 
Stolen  kisses  are  notoriously  sweetest,  but  when,  in  addition  to 
this,  every  one  is  actually  the  very  last  the  shareholders  intend 
to  subscribe  for,  their  fascination  is  increased  tenfold.  And 
ever)7  accidental  or  purely  unintentionally  arranged  meeting  of 
these  two  had  always  the  character  of  an  interview  between  people 
who  never  meet — which,  like  most  truths,  was  only  false  in 
exceptional  cases;  and  in  this  instance  these  were  numerous. 
Factitious  absence  of  this  sort  will  often  make  the  heart  grow 
fonder,  where  the  real  thing  would  make  it  look  about  for  an- 
other ;  and  another  is  generally  to  be  found. 

It  might  have  been  unsafe  to  indulge  in  speculation,  based  on 
the  then  status  quo,  as  to  when  the  inevitable  was  going  to 
happen.  We  know  all  about  it  now,  but  that  doesn't  count. 
Stories,  true  or  false,  should  be  told  consecutively. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

IT  WAS  THAT  MRS.  NIGHTINGALE'S  FAULT.  A  SATISFACTORY  CHAP, 
GERRY!  A  TELEGRAM  AND  A  CLOUD.  BRONCHITIS  AND  ASTHMA  AND 
FOG.  SALLY  GOES  TO  MAYFAIR.  THE  OLD  SOLDIER  HAS  NOTICE  TO 

QUIT 

THE  most  deeply-rooted  instinct  of  mankind  is  the  one  that 
prompts  it  to  lay  the  blame  on  some  one  else.  Mankind  includes 
womankind,  and  woman  includes  (for  we  believe  she  is  still  liv- 
ing) the  Dragon  of  the  last  chapter.  As  it  did  not  occur  to  this 
good  lady  that  her  own  attitude  of  estrangement  from  Latitia 
had  anything  to  answer  for  in  the  rash  and  premature  develop- 
ment of  the  latter's  love-affair,  she  cast  about  for  a  scapegoat, 
and  found  one  in  the  person  of  Eosalind  Fenwick.  Some  one 
had  schemed  the  whole  business,  clearly,  and  who  else  could  it 
be  but  that  woman?  Of  course,  Lstitia  herself  was  simply  the 
victim  of  a  plot — she  was  young  and  inexperienced;  people's 
daughters  are. 

But  nothing  in  the  nefarious  business  had  escaped  the  watchful 
eye  of  the  Dragon.  At  the  time  of  the  very  first  appearance  of 
"that  Mrs.  Nightingale"  on  the  scene  she  had  pointed  out  her 
insidious  character,  and  forewarned  North  and  North-west 
Kensington  of  what  was  to  be  expected  from  a  person  of  her 
antecedents.  It  was  true  no  one  knew  anything  about  these 
latter;  but,  then,  that  was  exactly  the  point. 

"It's  useless  attempting  to  find  excuses  for  that  woman. 
Clarissa,"  she  had  said.  "It's  always  the  same  story  with 
people  of  that  sort.  Whenever  they  have  no  proper  introduc- 
tion, they  always  turn  out  schemers  and  matchmakers.  I  de- 
tected her,  and  said  so  at  once.  It  is  easy  for  your  father  to 
pretend  he  has  forgotten.  He  always  does.  My  consolation  is 
that  I  did  my  duty.  And  then,  of  course,  it  all  turns  out  as  I 
said.  Anybody  could  have  known  what  sort  of  person  she  was 
with  half  an  eye !" 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  237 

"And  what  sort  of  person  is  she?"  asked  Clavissa  coldly.  She 
had  not  forgotten  the  vaccination  from  the  calf. 

"The  sort  of  person  you  would  expect.  Unless,  Clarissa,  you 
are  going  to  take  a  leaf  out  of  your  father's  book,  and  make 
believe  you  do  not  understand  what  is  transparently  on  the 
surface.  What  interest  can  Major  Roper  have  in  inventing  the 
story,  I  should  like  to  know  ?" 

"How  does  he  come  to  know  so  much  about  it?  Who  told 
him?" 

"Who  told  him?  Why,  of  course  that  very  old  gentleman — 

whafs  his  name? — you  know "  Mrs.  Wilson  tries  if  she 

can't  recollect  with  a  quick  vibration  of  a  couple  of  fingers  to 
back  up  her  brain.  "Colonel  Dunn !" 

"Major  Lund?" 

"Lunn  or  Dunn.  Yes,  I  remember  now;  it's  Lunn,  because 
the  girl  said  when  she  was  a  child  she  thought  Sally  Lunns  had 
something  to  do  with  both.  You  may  depend  on  it,  I'm  right. 
Well,  Major  Roper's  his  most  intimate  friend.  They  belong  to 
the  same  club." 

The  ladies  then  lost  sight  of  their  topic,  which  lapsed  into  a 
rather  heated  discussion  of  whether  the  very  old  gentleman  was 
a  Colonel  or  a  Major.  As  we  don't  want  to  hear  them  on  this 
point,  we  may  let  them  lapse  too. 

It  may  have  been  because  of  some  home  anxieties — notably 
about  the  Major,  whose  bronchitis  had  been  bad — that  Rosalind 
Fenwick  continued  happily  unconscious  of  having  incurred  any 
blame  or  taken  any  responsibility  on  herself  in  connexion  with 
the  Ladbroke  Grove  row,  as  Sally  called  it.  If  she  had  known 
of  it,  very  likely  it  would  not  have  troubled  her,  for  she  was 
really  too  contented  with  her  own  condition  and  surroundings 
to  be  concerned  about  externals.  Whatever  troubles  she  had 
were  connected  with  the  possibility,  which  always  seemed  to  grow 
fainter,  of  a  revival  of  her  husband's  powers  of  memory.  Some- 
times whole  weeks  would  pass  without  an  alarm.  Sometimes 
some  little  stirring  of  the  mind  would  occur  twice  in  the  same 
day;  still,  the  tendency  seemed  to  be,  on  the  whole,  towards  a 
more  and  more  complete  oblivion. 

But  the  fact  is  that  so  long  as  she  had  the  Major  invalided  at 
Krakatoa  Villa  (for  he  was  taken  ill  there,  and  remained  on  her 


238  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

hands  many  weeks  before  he  could  return  to  his  lodgings)  she 
had  the  haziest  impressions  of  the  outside  world.  Sally  talked 
about  "the  row"  while  they  were  nursing  the  old  boy,  but 
really  she  heeded  her  very  little.  Then,  when  the  invalid  was 
so  far  reinstated  that  he  was  fit  to  be  moved  safely,  Sally  went 
away  too,  for  a  change. 

The  respite  to  old  Colonel  Lund  was  not  to  be  for  long.  But 
the  rest,  alone  with  her  husband,  was  not  unwelcome  to  Eosalind. 

"I  can  never  have  been  one-tenth  as  happ3r,  Eosey  darling," 
said  he  to  her  one  day,  "as  I  have  been  in  the  last  six  months. 
I  should  recollect  all  about  it  if  I  had." 

"You're  a  satisfactory  chap  to  deal  with,  Gerry — I  must  say 
that  for  you.  You  always  beam,  come  what  may.  Even  when 
you  fly  out — which  you  do,  you  know — it's  more  like  a  big  dog 
than  a  wasp.  You  were  always  .  .  ."  Now,  Eosalind  was  going 
to  say  "always  like  that";  it  was  a  mistake  she  was  constantly 
in  danger  of.  But  she  stopped  in  time,  and  changed  her  speech 
to  "You're  not  without  your  faults,  you  know !  You  never  can 
come  to  an  anchor,  and  be  quiet.  You  sit  on  the  arms  of  chairs, 
and  your  hands  are  too  big  and  strong.  No;  you  needn't  stop. 
Go  on !"  We  like  leaving  the  words  to  elucidate  the  concurrent 
action.  "And  you  don't  smell  much  of  tobacco." 

Fenwick,  however,  had  noticed  the  kink  in  the  thread,  and 
must  needs  wind  it  back  to  get  a  clear  line.  "I  was  always 
what?"  said  he.  His  wife  saw  a  way  out. 

"Always  good  when  your  daughter  was  here  to  manage  you." 
It  wasn't  so  satisfactory  as  it  might  have  been,  but  answered 
in  dealing  with  a  mind  so  unsuspicious.  Sally's  having  spent 
Christmas  and  stayed  on  a  little  at  a  friend's  in  the  country  lent 
plausibility  to  a  past  tense  which  might  else  have  jarred. 

"I  don't  want  the  kitten  all  to  myself,  you  know,"  said  Fen- 
wick.  "It  wouldn't  be  fair.  After  all,  she  was  yours  before 
she  was  mine." 

There  was  not  a  tremor  in  the  hand  that  lay  in  his,  the  one 
that  was  not  caressing  her  cheek ;  not  a  sign  of  flinching  in  the 
eyes  that  turned  round  on  him;  not  a  trace  of  hesitation  in  the 
voice  that  said,  with  concession  to  a  laugh  in  it:  "Yes,  she  was 
mine  before  she  was  yours."  Such  skill  had  grown  in  this  life 
of  nettle-grasping ! — indeed,  she  hardly  felt  the  sting  now.  This 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  239 

time  she  was  able  to  go  on  placidly,  in  the  unconnected  way  of 
talk  books  know  not,  and  life  well  knows : 

"Do  you  know  what  the  kitten  will  be  next  August?" 

"Yes;  twenty-one." 

"It's  rather  awful,  isn't  it?" 

"Which  way  do  you  mean?  Ifs  awful  because  she  isn't 
fiancee,  or  awful  because  she  might  be  at  any  minute?" 

"You've  picked  up  her  way  of  going  to  the  point,  Gerry.  I 
never  said  anything  about  her  being  fiancee." 

"No,  but  you  meant  it." 

"Of  course  I  did!  Well,  then,  because  she  might  be  any 
minute.  I'm  very  glad  she  isn't.  Why,  you  know  I  must  be !" 

"I  am,  anyhow !" 

"Just  think  what  the  house  would  be  without  her !" 

"The  best  place  in  the  world  still  for  me."  She  acknowl- 
edges this  by  a  kiss  on  his  hairy  hand,  which  he  returns  via  her 
forehead ;  then  goes  on :  "All  the  same,  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  know 
what  we  should  do  without  our  kitten.  But  has  anything  made 
you  afraid?" 

"Oh  no;  nothing  at  all!  Certainly;  no,  nothing.  Have  you 
noticed  anything?" 

"Oh  dear,  no!  For  anything  I  can  see,  she  may  continue  a 
— a  sort  of  mer-pussy  to  the  end  of  time."  Both  laugh  in  a  way 
at  the  name  he  has  made  for  her;  then  he  adds:  "Only  .  .  ." 

"Only  what?" 

"Nothing  I  could  lay  hold  of." 

"I  wonder  whether  you're  thinking  of  the  same  thing  as  I 
am?"  Very  singularly,  it  does  not  seem  necessary  to  elucidate 
the  point.  They  merely  look  at  each  other,  and  continue  looking 
as  Fenwick  says: 

"They  are  a  funny  couple,  if  that's  it !" 

"They  certainly  are,"  she  replies.  "But  I  have  thought  so, 
for  all  that!"  And  then  both  look  at  the  fire  as  before,  this 
being,  of  course,  in  the  depth  of  winter.  Rosalind  speaks  next. 

"There's  no  doubt  about  him,  of  course !  But  the  chick  would 
have  told  me  at  once  if  .  .  ." 

"If  there  had  been  anything  to  tell.    No  doubt  she  would." 

"Of  course,  it's  absurd  to  suppose  he  could  see  so  much  of 
her  as  he  does,  and  not  .  .  ." 


240  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Perfectly  absurd!  But  then,  you  know,  that  young  fiddler 
was  very  bad,  indeed,  about  the  chick  until  he  made  her  acquaint- 
ance." 

"So  he  was."     Thoughtfully,  as  one  who  weighs. 

"The  kitten  met  him  with  a  sort  of  stony  geniality  that 
would  have  knocked  the  heart  out  of  a  Romeo.  If  Juliet  had 
known  the  method,  she  could  have  nipped  Shakespeare  in  the 
bud." 

"She  didn't  want  to.    Sally  did" 

"But  then  Shakespeare  might  have  gone  on  and  written  a 
dry  respectable  story — -not  a  love-story;  an  esteem  story — about 
how  Juliet  took  an  interest  in  Romeo's  welfare,  and  Romeo 
posted  her  letters  for  her,  and  presented  her  with  a  photograph 
album,  and  so  on.  And  how  the  families  left  cards." 

"But  it  isn't  exactly  stony  geniality.  It's  another  method 
altogether  with  the  doctor — a  method  the  child's  invented  for 
herself." 

Fenwick  repeats,  "A  method  she's  invented  for  herself.  Ex- 
actly. Well,  we  shall  have  her  back  to-morrow.  What  time  does 
she  come?"  And  then  her  mother  says,  interrupting  the  con- 
versation: "What's  that?" 

"What's  what?" 

"I  thought  I  heard  the  gate  go." 

"Not  at  this  time  of  night."  But  Fenwick  is  wrong,  for  in 
a  moment  comes  an  imperious  peal  at  the  bell.  A  pair  of  boots, 
manifestly  on  a  telegraph-boy's  cold  feet,  play  a  devil's  tattoo 
on  the  sheltered  doorstep.  They  have  been  inaudible  till  now, 
as  the  snow  is  on  the  ground  again  at  Moira  Villas.  In  three 
minutes  the  boots  are  released,  and  they  and  their  wearer  depart, 
callously  uninterested  in  the  contents  of  the  telegram  they  have 
brought.  If  we  were  a  telegraph-boy,  we  should  always  be  yearn- 
ing to  know  and  share  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  our  employers. 
This  boy  doesn't,  to  judge  by  the  way  he  sings  that  he  is  "Only 
the  Ghost  of  a  Mother-in-law,"  showing  that  he  goes  to  the 
music-halls. 

Less  than  ten  minutes  after  the  telegraph-boy  has  died  away 
in  the  distance  Rosalind  and  her  husband  are  telling  a  cab  to 
take  them  to  174,  Ball  Street,  Mayfair. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  241 

It  does  so  grudgingly,  because  of  the  state  of  the  roads.  It 
wants  three-and-sixpence,  and  gets  it,  for  the  same  reason.  But 
it  doesn't  appear  to  be  drawn  by  a  logical'  horse  who  can  deal 
with  inferences,  because  it  is  anxious  to  know  when  its  clients 
are  going  back,  that  it  may  call  round  for  them. 

For  the  telegram  was  that  there  was  "no  cause  immediate 
apprehension;  perhaps  better  come. — Major."  As  might  have 
been  expected  from  such  a  telegram  about  a  man  of  his  age,  just 
after  seeming  recovery  from  an  attack  of  bronchitis,  the  hours  on 
earth  of  its  subject  were  numbered.  Fever  may  abate,  tempera- 
ture may  be  brought  down  to  the  normal,  the  most  nourishing 
possible  nourishment  may  be  given  at  the  shortest  possible  inter- 
vals, but  the  recoil  of  exhaustion  will  have  its  way  when  there 
is  little  or  nothing  left  to  exhaust.  Colonel  Lund  had  possibly 
two  or  three  years  of  natural  life  before  him,  disease  apart, 
when  a  fierce  return  of  the  old  enemy,  Backed  by  the  severity 
of  a  London  winter,  and  even  more  effectually  by  its  fog,  stopped 
the  old  heart  a  few  thousand  beats  too  soon,  and  ended  a  record 
its  subject  had  ceased  to  take  an  interest  in  a  few  paragraphs 
short  of  the  normal  finis. 

We  allow  our  words  to  overtake  our  story  in  this  way  because 
we  know  that  you  know — you  who  read — exactly  what  follows 
telegrams  like  the  one  that  came  to  Mrs.  Fenwick.  If  you  are 
new  and  young,  and  do  not  know  it  yet,  you  will  soon.  How- 
ever, we  can  now  go  back. 

When  the  economical  landlady  (a  rather  superior  person)  who 
had  opened  the  street-door  was  preceding  Rosalind  up  the  nar- 
row stairs,  and  turning  up  gas-jets  from  their  reserve  of  dark- 
ness-point, she  surprised  her  by  saying  she  thought  there  was 
the  Major  coming  downstairs.  "Yes,  madam ;  the  Major — Major 
Roper,"  she  continued,  in  reply  to  an  expression  of  astonishment. 
Rosalind  had  forgotten  that  Colonel  Lund  was,  outside  her  own 
family,  "the  Colonel." 

It  was  Major  Roper  whom  we  have  seen  at  the  Hurkaru  Club, 
as  purple  as  ever  and  more  asthmatic — in  fact,  the  noise  that 
was  the  Major  coming  downstairs  was  also  the  noise  of  the 
Major  choking  in  the  fog.  It  came  slowly  down,  and  tried  hard 
to  stop,  in  order  that  its  source  might  speak  intelligibly  to  the 
visitors.  What  time  the  superior  person  stood  and  grudged  the 


242  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

gas.  In  the  end,  speech  of  a  sort  was  squeezed  out  slowly, 
as  the  landlady,  stung  to  action  by  the  needless  gas-waste, 
plucked  the  words  out  of  the  speaker's  mouth  at  intervals,  and 
finished  them  up  for  him.  The  information  came  piecemeal ;  but 
in  substance  it  was  that  he  had  the  day  before  found  his  old 
friend  coughing  his  liver  up  in  this  dam  fog,  and  had  taken 
on  himself  to  fetch  the  medical  man  and  a  nurse;  that  these 
latter,  though  therapeutically  useless,  as  is  the  manner  of  doc- 
tors and  nurses,  had  common-sense  enough  to  back  him  (Eoper) 
in  his  view  that  Mrs.  Fenwick  ought  to  be  sent  for,  although 
the  patient  opposed  their  doing  so.  So  he  took  upon  himself 
to  wire.  There  wasn't  any  occasion  whatever  for  alarm,  ma'am ! 
Not  the  slightest.  "You  hear  me,  and  mark  what  I  say — an 
old  stager,  ma'am!  Ever  such  a  little  common-sense,  and  half 
the  patients  would  recover !"  A  few  details  of  the  rapid  increase 
of  the  fever,  of  the  patient's  resistance  to  the  sending  of  his 
message,  and  an  indication  of  a  curious  feeling  on  the  old 
Colonel's  part  that  it  wouldn't  be  correct  form  to  go  back  to  be 
nursed  through  a  second  attack  when  he  had  so  lately  got  safe 
out  of  the  first  one.  All  this  landed  the  speaker  in  something 
near  suffocation,  and  made  his  hearers  protest,  quite  uselessly, 
against  his  again  exposing  himself  to  the  fog.  Whereon  the 
landlady,  with  a  finger  on  the  gas-tap,  nodded  toward  the  con- 
vulsed old  officer  to  supply  her  speech  with  a  nominative,  and 
spoke.  What  she  said  was  merely :  "Hasn't  been  to  bed."  And 
then  waited  for  Eosalind  to  go  upstairs  with  such  aggressive 
patience  that  the  latter  could  only  say  a  word  or  two  of  thanks 
to  Major  Eoper  and  pass  up.  He,  for  his  part,  went  quicker 
downstairs  to  avoid  the  thanks,  and  the  gas-tap  vigil  came  to 
a  sudden  end  the  moment  Eosalind  turned  the  handle  of  the 
door  above.  .  .  .  Now,  what  is  the  object  of  all  this  endless 
detail  of  what  might  have  been  easily  told  in  three  words — well, 
in  thirty,  certainly? 

Simly  this:  to  show  you  why  Fenwick,  following  on  after 
some  discussion  with  the  cab  below,  was  practically  invisible 
to  the  asthmatic  one,  who  passed  him  on  the  stairs  just  as  the 
light  above  vanished.  So  he  had  no  chance  of  recognizing  the 
donor  of  his  tiger's  skin,  which  he  might  easily  have  __  done  in 
open  day,  in  spite  of  the  twenty  years  between,  for  the  old  chap 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  243 

was  as  sharp  as  a  razor  about  people.  He  passed  Fenwick  with 
a  good-evening,  and  Mr.  Fenwick,  he  presumed,  and  his  good 
lady  was  on  ahead,  as  indicated  by  the  speaker's  thumb  across 
his  shoulder.  Fenwick  made  all  acknowledgments,  and  felt  his 
way  upstairs  in  the  dark  till  the  nurse  with  a  hand-lamp  looked 
over  the  banisters  for  him. 

When  Sally  came  back  to  Krakatoa  Villa  early  next  day  she 
found  an  empty  house,  and  a  note  signed  Jeremiah  that  ex- 
plained its  emptiness.  We  had  been  sent  for  to  the  Major,  and 
Sally  wasn't  to  be  frightened.  He  had  had  a  better  night  than 
last  night,  the  doctor  and  nurse  said ;  and  Sally  might  come  on 
as  soon  as  she  had  had  a  good  lunch.  Only  she  was  on  no 
account  to  fidget. 

So  she  didn't  fidget.  She  had  the  good  lunch  very  early, 
left  Ann  to  put  back  her  things  in  the  drawers,  and  found  her 
way  through  the  thickening  fog  to  the  Tube,  only  just  anxious 
enough  about  the  Major  to  feel,  until  the  next  station  was  Marble 
Arch,  that  London  had  changed  and  got  cruder  and  more  cold- 
hearted  since  she  went  away,  and  that  the  guard  was  chilly  and 
callous  about  her,  and  didn't  care  how  jolly  a  house-party  she 
had  left  behind  her  at  Riverfordhook.  For  it  was  that  nice 
aunt  of  Tishy's  that  had  asked  her  down  for  a  few  days,  and 
the  few  days  had  caught  on  to  their  successors  as  they  came, 
and  become  a  fortnight.  But  he  appeared  to  show  a  human 
heart,  at  least,  by  a  certain  cordiality  with  which  he  announced 
the  prospect  of  Marble  Arch,  which  might  have  been  because  it 
was  Sally's  station.  Now,  he  had  said  Lancaster  Gate  snap- 
pishly, and  Queen's  Road  with  misgiving,  as  though  he  would 
have  fain  added  D.V.  if  the  printed  regulations  had  permitted 
it.  Also,  Sally  thought  there  was  good  feeling  in  the  reluctance 
he  showed  to  let  her  out,  based  entirely  on  nervousness  lest  she 
should  slip  (colloquially)  between  the  platform. 

You  don't  save  anything  by  taking  the  pink  'bus,  nor  any 
'bus  for  that  matter,  down  Park  Lane  when  the  traffic  tumbles 
down  every  half-minute,  in  spite  of  cinders  lavished  by  the  au- 
thority, and  can't  really  see  its  way  to  locomotion  when  it  gets 
up.  So  you  may  just  as  well  walk.  Sally  did  so,  and  in  ten 
minutes  reached  the  queer  little  purlieu  teeming  with  the  well- 


244  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

connected,  and  named  after  the  great  Mysteries  they  are  con- 
nected with,  that  lies  in  the  angle  of  Park  Lane  and  Piccadilly. 
Persons  of  exaggerated  sense  of  locality  or  mature  hereditary 
experience  can  make  short  cuts  through  this  district,  but  the 
wayfarer  (broadly  speaking)  had  better  not  try,  lest  he  be  found 
dead  in  a  mews  by  the  Coroner,  and  made  the  subject  of  a 
verdict  according  to  the  evidence.  Sally  knew  all  about  it  of 
old,  and  went  as  straight  through  the  fog  as  the  ground-plan 
of  the  streets  permitted  to  the  house  where  her  mother  and  a 
nurse  were  doing  what  might  be  done  to  prolong  the  tenancy  of 
the  top-floor.  But  both  knew  the  occupant  had  received  notice 
to  quit.  Only,  it  did  seem  so  purposeless,  this  writ  of  eject- 
ment and  violent  expulsion,  when  he  was  quite  ready  to  go,  and 
wanted  nothing  but  permission. 


CHAPTER  XXHI 

OF  A  FOG  THAT  WAS  UP-TO-DATE,  AND  HOW  A  FIRE-ENGINE  RELIEVED 
SALLY  FROM  A  BOY.  HOW  SALLY  GOT  IN  AT  A  GENTLEMEN'S  CLUB, 
AND  HOW  VETERANS  COULD  RECOLLECT  HER  FATHER.  BUT  THEY 
KNOW  WHAT  SHE  CAN  BE  TOLD,  AND  WHAT  SHE  CAN'T.  HOW  MAJOR 
ROPER  WOULD  GO  OUT  IN  THE  FOG 

MRS.  FENWICK  was  not  sorry  to  break  down  a  little,  now  that 
her  daughter  had  come  to  break  down  on.  She  soon  pulled  to- 
gether, however.  Breaking  down  was  not  a  favourite  relaxation 
of  hers,  as  we  have  seen.  Her  husband  had,  of  course,  left  her  to 
go  to  his  place  of  business,  not  materially  the  worse  for  a  night 
spent  without  closed  eyes  and  in  the  anxiety  of  a  sick-chamber. 

"Oh,  mother  darling!  you  are  quite  worn  out.     How  is  he?" 

"He's  quiet  now,  kitten;  but  we  thought  the  cough  would  have 
killed  him  in  the  night.  He's  only  so  quiet  now  because  of  the 

opiates.  Only  at  his  age "  Mrs.  Fenwick  stopped  and 

looked  at  the  nurse,  whose  shake  of  the  head  was  an  assent  to 
the  impossibility  of  keeping  a  patient  of  eighty  alive  on  opiates. 
Then,  having  gone  thus  far  in  indicating  the  grim  probabilities 
of  the  case,  Sally's  mother  added,  as  alleviation  to  a  first  collision 
with  Death:  "But  Dr.  Mildmay  says  the  inflammation  and  fever 

may  subside,  and  then,  if  he  can  take  nourishment "  but  got 

no  further,  for  incredulity  of  this  sort  of  thing  is  in  the  air  of 
the  establishment. 

Not,  perhaps,  on  Sally's  part.  Young  people  who  have  not 
seen  Death  face-to-face  have  little  real  conception  of  his  horrible 
unasked  intrusion  into  the  house  of  Life.  That  house  is  to  them 
almost  as  inviolable  as  the  home  of  our  babyhood  was  to  the  most 
of  us,  a  sacred  fane  under  the  protection  of  an  omnipotent  high- 
priest  and  priestess — papa  and  mamma.  Almost  as  inviolable, 
that  is,  when  those  who  live  in  it  are  our  friends.  Of  course, 
the  people  in  the  newspapers  go  dying — are  even  killed  in  rail- 
way accidents.  This  frame  of  mind  will  change  for  Sally  when 

245 


246  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

she  has  seen  this  patient  die.  For  the  time  being,  she  is  half 
insensible — can  think  of  other  things. 

"What  did  the  party  mean  that  let  me  in,  mother  darling? 
The  fusty  party?  She  said  she  thought  it  was  the  Major.  I 
didn't  take  any  notice  till  now.  I  wanted  to  get  up." 

"It  was  the  other  Major,  dear — Major  Eoper.  Don't  you 
know?  He  used  to  talk  of  him,  and  say  he  was  an  old  gossip." 
In  the  dropped  voice  and  the  stress  on  the  pronoun  one  can  hear 
how  the  speaker's  mind  knows  that  the  old  Colonel  is  almost 
part  of  the  past.  "But  they  were  very  old  friends.  They  were 
together  through  the  Mutiny.  He  was  his  commanding  officer." 
Sally's  eyes  rest  on  the  old  sabre  that  hangs  on  its  hook  in  the 
wall,  where  she  has  often  seen  it,  ranking  it  prosaically  with  the 
other  furnishings  of  "the  Major's"  apartment.  Now,  a  new 
light  is  on  it,  and  it  becomes  a  reality  in  a  lurid  past,  long,  long 
before  there  was  any  Sally.  A  past  of  muzzle-loading  guns 
and  Minie  rifles,  of  forced  marches  through  a  furnace-heat  to 
distant  forts  that  hardly  owned  the  name,  all  too  late  to  save 
the  remnant  of  their  defenders;  a  past  of  a  hundred  massacres 
and  a  thousand  heroisms;  a  past  that  clings  still,  Sally  dear, 
about  the  memory  of  us  oldsters  that  had  to  know  it,  as  we  would 
fain  that  no  things  that  are,  or  are  to  be,  should  ever  cling  about 
yours.  But  you  have  read  the  story  often,  and  the  tale  of  it 
grows  and  lives  round  the  old  sabre  on  the  wall. 

Except  as  an  explanation  of  the  fusty  party's  reference  to  a 
Major,  Old  Jack — that  was  Sally's  Major's  name  for  him — got 
very  little  foothold  in  her  mind,  until  a  recollection  of  her 
mother's  allusion  to  him  as  an  old  gossip  having  made  her  look 
for  a  suitable  image  to  place  there,  she  suddenly  recalled  that  it 
was  he  that  had  actually  seen  her  father;  talked  to  him  in  India 
twenty  years  ago;  could,  and  no  doubt  would,  tell  her  all  about 
the  divorce.  But  there! — she  couldn't  speak  to  him  about  it  here 
and  now.  It  was  impossible. 

Still,  she  was  curious  to  see  him,  and  the  fusty  but  genteel  one 
had  evidently  expected  him.  So,  during  the  remainder  of  what 
seemed  to  Sally  the  darkest  day,  morally  and  atmospherically, 
that  she  had  ever  spent — all  but  the  bright  morning  when  she 
ran  into  the  fog  somewhere  near  Surbiton,  full  of  tales  to  tell 
of  the  house-party  that  now  seemed  a  happy  dream — during  this 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  247 

gloomy  remainder  Sally  wondered  what  could  have  happened  that 
the  other  Major  should  not  have  turned  up.  The  fog  would  have 
been  more  than  enough  to  account  for  any  ordinary  non-appear- 
ance; hardly  for  this  one. 

For  it  turned  out,  as  soon  as  it  got  full  powers  to  assert  itself, 
the  densest  fog  on  record.  The  Londoner  was  in  his  element. 
He  told  the  dissatisfied  outsider  with  pride  of  how  at  midday  it 
had  been  impossible  to  read  large  pica  on  Ludgate  Hill;  he  didn't 
say  why  he  tried  to  do  so.  He  retailed  frightful  stories — but 
always  with  a  sense  of  distinction — of  folk  crushed  under  hoofs 
and  cart-wheels.  If  one  half  were  true,  some  main  thorough- 
fares must  have  been  paved  with  flattened  pedestrians.  The 
satisfaction  he  derived  from  the  huge  extra  profits  of  the  gas- 
companies  made  his  hearer  think  he  must  be  a  shareholder,  until 
pari  passu  reasoning  proved  him  to  have  invested  in  fog-signals. 
His  legends  of  hooligans  preying  on  the  carcasses  of  strangled 
earls  undisturbed  had  a  set-off  in  others  of  marauders  who  had 
rushed  into  the  arms  of  the  police  and  thought  them  bosom 
friends;  while  that  of  an  ex-Prime  Minister  who  walked  round  and 
round  for  an  hour,  and  then  rang  at  a  house  to  ask  where  he  was, 
ended  in  consolation,  as  the  door  was  opened  by  his  own  foot- 
man, who  told  him  he  wasn't  at  home.  Exact  estimates  were 
current,  most  unreasonably,  of  the  loss  to  commerce;  so  much 
so  that  the  other  Londoner  corrected  him  positively  with,  "Nearer 
three-quarters  of  a  million,  they  say,"  and  felt  proud  of  his 
higher  knowledge.  But  neither  felt  the  least  ashamed,  nor  the 
least  afraid  of  the  hideous,  inevitable  future  fog,  when  a  suf- 
focated population  shall  find,  as  it  surely  will,  that  it  is  at  the 
bottom  of  a  sea  of  unbreathable  air,  instead  of  one  that  merely 
makes  it  choke  its  stomach  up  and  kills  an  old  invalid  or  two. 
On  the  contrary,  both  regarded  it  as  the  will  of  a  judicious  Prov- 
idence, a  developer  of  their  own  high  moral  qualities  and  a 
destroyer  of  their  germs. 

Bronchitis  and  asthma  are  kittle-cattle  to  shoe  behind,  even 
where  the  sweet  Mediterranean  air  blows  pure  upon  Rapallo  and 
Nervi,  but  what  manner  of  cattle  are  they  in  a  London  fog? 
Can  they  be  shoed  at  all?  As  Mrs.  Fen  wick  sits  and  waits  in 
terror  to  hear  the  first  inevitable  cough  as  the  old  man  wakes, 
and  talks  in  whispers  to  her  daughter  in  the  growing  darkness, 


248  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

she  feels  how  her  own  breath  drags  at  the  tough  air,  and  how 
her  throat  resents  the  sting  of  the  large  percentage  of  sulphur 
monoxide  it  contains.  The  gas-jet  is  on  at  the  full — or  rather 
the  tap  is,  for  the  fish-tail  burner  doesn't  realise  its  ideal.  It 
sputters  in  its  lurid  nimbus — gets  bronchitis  on  its  own  account, 
tries  to  cough  its  tubes  clear  and  fails.  Sally  and  her  mother 
sit  on  in  the  darkness,  and  talk  about  it,  shirking  the  coming 
suffocation  of  their  old  friend,  and  praying  that  his  sleep  may 
last  till  the  deadly  air  lightens,  be  it  ever  so  little.  Sally's  ani- 
mated face  shows  that  she  is  on  a  line  of  cogitation,  and  presently 
it  fructifies. 

"Suppose  every  one  let  their  fires  out,  wouldn't  the  fog  go?  It 
couldn't  go  on  by  itself." 

"I  don't  know,  chick.  I  suppose  it's  been  all  thought  out  by 
committees  and  scientific  people.  Besides,  we  should  all  be 
frozen." 

"Not  if  we  went  to  bed." 

"What!     In  the  daytime?" 

"Better  do  nothing  in  bed  than  be  choked  up." 

"I  dare  say  the  fog  wouldn't  go  away.  You  see,  it's  due  to 
atmospheric  conditions,  so  they  say." 

"That's  only  because  nobody's  there  to  stop  ?em  talking  non- 
sense. Look  at  all  that  smoke  going  up  our  chimney."  So  it  was, 
and  a  jolly  blaze  there  was  going  to  be  when  the  three  shovelfuls 
Sally  had  enthusiastically  heaped  on  had  incubated,  and  the  time 
was  ripe  for  the  poker. 

Had  you  been  there  you  would  have  seen  in  Sally's  face  as 
it  caught  the  firelight-flicker  and  pondered  on  the  cause  of  the 
fog,  that  she  had  not  heard  a  choking  fit  of  the  poor  old  sleeper 
in  the  next  room.  And  in  her  mother's  that  she  had,  and  all  the 
memory  of  the  dreadful  hours  just  passed.  Her  manner,  too, 
was  absent  as  she  talked,  and  she  listened  constantly.  Sally 
was  to  know  what  it  was  like  soon.  The  opium  sleep  would 
end. 

"Isn't  that  him?"  The  mother's  sharp  ear  of  apprehension 
makes  her  say  this;  the  daughter  has  not  heard  the  buried  efforts 
of  the  lung  that  cannot  cough.  It  will  succeed  directly,  if  the 
patient  is  raised  up,  so.  Both  have  gone  quickly  and  quietly 
into  the  sick-chamber,  and  it  is  the  nurse  who  speaks.  Her 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  249 

prediction  is  fulfilled,  and  the  silent  struggle  of  suffocation  be- 
comes a  tearing  convulsion,  that  means  to  last  some  while  and 
does  it.  How  the  old,  thin  tenement  of  life  can  go  on  living 
unkilled  is  a  problem  to  solve.  But  it  survives  this  time.  Per- 
haps the  new  cough-mixture  will  make  the  job  easier  next  time. 
We  shall  see. 

Anyhow,  this  attack — bad  as  it  was — has  not  been  so  bad  as 
the  one  he  had  at  three  this  morning.  Rosalind  and  Nurse 
Emilia  invent  a  paroxysm  of  diabolical  severity,  partly  for  the 
establishment  of  a  pinnacle  for  themselves  to  look  down  on  Sally 
from,  partly  for  her  consolation.  He  wasn't  able  to  speak  for 
ever  so  long  after  that,  and  this  time  he  is  trying  to  say  some- 
thing. .  .  .  "What  is  it,  dear?" 

"Couldn't  we  have  a  window  open  to  let  a  little  air  in?" 

Well! — we  could  have  a  window  open.  We  could  let  a  little 
air  in — but  only  a  very  little.  And  that  very  little  would  bring 
with  it  copious  percentages  of  moisture  saturated  with  finely  sub- 
divided carbonaceous  matter,  of  carbon  dioxide,  and  sulphur 
dioxide,  and  traces  of  hydric  chloride,  who  is  an  old  friend  of 
our  youth,  known  to  us  then  as  muriatic  acid. 

"It's  such  a  thick  fog,  Major  dear.  As  soon  as  it  clears  a  little 
we'll  open  the  window.  Won't  we,  Sally?" 

"Is  Sally  there?  .  .  .  Come  and  touch  my  hand,  kitten.  .  .  . 
That's  right.  .  .  ."  What  is  left  of  the  Major  can  still  enjoy 
the  plump  little  white  hand  that  takes  the  old  fingers  that  once 
could  grasp  the  sword  that  hangs  on  the  wall.  It  will  not  be 
for  very  long  now.  A  newspaper  paragraph  will  soon  give  a 
short  record  of  all  the  battles  that  sword  left  its  scabbard  to 
see,  and  will  tell  of  its  owner's  service  in  his  later  days  as  deputy 
Commissioner  at  Umritsur,  and  of  the  record  of  long  residence 
in  India  it  established,  exceeding  that  of  his  next  competitor  by 
many  years.  Not  a  few  old  warriors  that  were  in  those  battles, 
and  many  that  knew  his  later  time,  will  follow  him  beyond  it 
very  soon.  But  he  is  not  gone  yet,  and  his  hand  can  just  give 
back  its  pressure  to  Sally's,  as  she  sits  by  him,  keeping  her  heart 
in  and  her  tears  back.  The  actual  collapse  of  vital  forces  has 
not  come — will  not  come  for  a  few  days.  He  can  speak  a  little 
as  she  stoops  to  hear  him. 

"Young  people  like  you  ought  to  be  in  bed,  chick,  getting 


250  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

beauty-sleep.  You  must  go  home,  and  make  your  mother 
go.  ...  You  go.  7  shall  be  all  right.  .  .  ." 

"It  isn't  night,  Major  dear" — Sally  makes  a  paltry  attempt  to 
laugh — "it's  three  in  the  afternoon.  It's  the  fog."  But  she  can- 
not hear  what  he  says  in  answer  to  this,  go  close  as  she  may. 
After  a  pause  of  rest  he  tries  again,  with  raised  voice: 

"Koper — Koper — Old  Jack  .  .  .  mustn't  come  .  .  .  asthma 
in  the  fog  .  .  .  somebody  go  to  stop  him."  He  is  quite  clear- 
headed, and  when  Sally  says  she  will  go  at  once,  he  spots  the  only 
risk  she  would  run,  being  young  and  healthy: 

"Sure  you  can  find  your  way?  Over  the  club-house — Hurkaru 
Club "  And  then  is  stopped  by  a  threat  of  returning  cough. 

But  Sally  knows  all  about  it,  and  can  find  her  way  anywhere — 
so  she  says.  She  is  off  in  a  twinkling,  leaving  her  mother  and 
the  nurse  to  wait  for  the  terrible  attack  that  means  to  come,  in 
due  course,  as  soon  as  the  new  cough-mixture  gets  tired. 

Sally  is  a  true  Londoner.  She  won't  admit,  whoever  else  does, 
that  a  fog  is  a  real  evil.  On  the  contrary,  she  inclines  to  Prus- 
sian tactics — flies  in  the  face  of  adverse  criticism  with  the  de- 
cision that  a  fog  is  rather  a  lark  when  you're  out  in  it.  Actually 
face  to  face  with  a  human  creature  choking,  Sally's  optimism  had 
wavered.  It  recovers  itself  in  the  bracing  atmosphere  of  a  main- 
thoroughfare  charged  to  bursting  with  lines  of  vehicles,  any  one 
of  which  would  go  slowly  alone,  but  the  collective  slowness  of 
which  finds  a  vent  in  a  deadlock  a  mile  away — an  hour  before  we 
can  move,  we  here. 

By  what  human  agency  it  comes  about  that  any  wheeled 
vehicle  drawn  of  horses  can  thunder  at  a  hand-gallop  through 
the  matrix  of  such  a  deadlock,  Heaven  only  knows!  But  the  glare 
of  the  lamps  of  the  fire-brigade,  hot  upon  the  wild  excitement  of 
their  war-cry,  shows  that  this  particular  agglomeration  of  brass 
and  copper,  fraught  with  suppressed  energy  of  steam  well  up, 
means  to  try  for  it — seems  to  have  had  some  success  already,  in 
fact.  It  quite  puts  Sally  in  spirits — the  rapid  crescendo  of  the 
hissing  steam,  the  gleaming  boiler-dome  that  might  be  the  fruit- 
ful mother  of  all  the  helmets  that  hang  about  her  skirts,  the 
sudden  leaping  of  the  whole  from  the  turgid  opacity  behind  and 
equally  sudden  disappearance  into  the  void  beyond,  the  vanishing 
"Fire!"  cry  from  which  all  consonants  have  gone,  leaving  only  a 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  251 

sound  of  terror,  all  confirm  her  view  of  the  fog  as  a  lark.  For, 
you  see,  Sally  believed  the  Major  might  pull  through  even  now. 

Also  the  coming  of  the  engine  relieved  her  from  what 
threatened  to  become  a  permanent  embarrassment.  A  boy,  who 
may  have  been  a  good  boy  or  may  not,  had  attached  himself  to 
her,  under  pretext  of  either  a  strong  organ  of  locality  or  an 
extensive  knowledge  of  town. 

"Take  yer  'most  anywhere  for  fourpence!  Anywhere  yer  like 
to  name.  'Ammersmith,  'Ackney  Wick,  Noo  Cross,  Covent 
Garden  Market,  Kegency  Park.  Come,  I  say,  missis!" 

Sally  shouldn't  have  shaken  her  head  as  she  did.  She  ought 
to  have  ignored  his  existence.  He  continued: 

"I  don't  mind  makin'  it  thruppence  to  the  Regency  Park. 
Come,  missis,  I  say!  Think  what  a  little  money  for  the  distance. 
How  would  you  like  to  do  it  yourself?"  Sally  rashly  allowed 
herself  to  be  led  into  controversy. 

"I  tell  you  I  don't  want  to  go  to  Regents  Park."  But  the  boy 
passed  this  protest  by — ignored  it. 

"You  won't  get  no  better  oarfer.  You  ask  any  of  the  boys. 
They'll  tell  you  all  alike.  Regency  Park  for  thruppence.  Or, 
lookey  here  now,  missis!  You  make  it  acrorst  Westminster 
Bridge,  and  I'll  say  twopence-'a'penny.  Come  now!  Acrorst  a 
bridge!"  This  boy  had  quite  lost  sight  of  the  importance  of 
selecting  a  destination  with  reference  to  its  chooser's  life-pur- 
poses, in  his  contemplation  of  the  advantages  of  being  profession- 
ally conducted  to  it.  Sally  was  not  sorry  when  the  coming  of 
the  fire-engine  distracted  his  attention,  and  led  to  his  disappear- 
ance in  the  fog. 

Pedestrians  must  have  been  stopping  at  home  to  get  a  breath 
of  fresh  air  indoors,  as  the  spectres  that  shot  out  of  the  fog,  to 
become  partly  solid  and  vanish  again  in  an  instant,  seemed  to 
come  always  one  at  a  time. 

"Can  you  tell  me,  sir" — Sally  is  addressing  a  promising 
spectre,  an  old  gentleman  of  sweet  aspect — "have  I  passed  the 
Hurkaru  Club?"  The  spectre  helps  an  imperfect  hearing  with 
an  ear-covering  outspread  hand,  and  Sally  repeats  her  question. 

"I  hope  so,  my  dear,"  he  says,  "I  hope  so.  Because  if  you 
haven't,  I  have.  I  wonder  where  we  are.  Whafs  this?"  He 
pats  a  building  at  its  reachable  point — a  stone  balustrade  at  a 


252  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

step  corner.  "Why,  here  we  are!  This  is  the  Club.  Can  I  do 
anything  for  you?" 

"I  want  Major  Roper" — and  then,  thinking  more  explanation 
asked  for,  adds — "who  wheezes."  It  is  the  only  identification 
she  can  recall  from  Tishy's  conversation  and  her  mother's  descrip- 
tion. She  herself  had  certainly  seen  their  subject  once  from  a 
distance,  but  she  had  only  an  impression  of  something  purple. 
She  could  hardly  offer  that  as  identification. 

"Old  Jack!  He  lives  in  a  kennel  at  the  top.  Mulberry,  tell 
Major  Eoper  lady  for  him.  Yes,  better  send  your  card  up,  my 
dear;  that's  right!" 

By  this  time  they  are  in  a  lobby  full  of  fog,  in  which  electric 
light  spots  are  showing  their  spiritless  nature.  Mulberry,  who 
is  like  Gibbon  the  historian  painted  in  carmine  (a  colour  which 
clashes  with  his  vermilion  lappets),  incites  a  youth  to  look  sharp; 
also,  to  take  that  card  up  to  Major  Roper.  As  the  boy  goes  up- 
stairs with  it  two  steps  at  a  time  Sally  follows  the  old  gentleman 
into  a  great  saloon  with  standing  desks  to  read  skewered  journals 
on  and  is  talking  to  him  on  the  hearthrug.  She  thinks  she  knows 
who  he  is. 

"I  came  to  stop  Major  Roper  coming  round  to  see  our  Major 
— Colonel  Lund,  I  mean.  It  isn't  fit  for  him  to  come  out  in  the 
fog." 

"Of  course,  it  isn't.  And  Lund  mustn't  come  out  at  his  age. 
Why,  he's  older  than  I  am.  .  .  .  What?  Very  ill  with  bron- 
chitis? I  heard  he'd  been  ailing,  but  they  said  he  was  all  right 
again.  Are  you  his  Rosey?" 

"No,  no;  mamma's  that!  She's  more  the  age,  you  know. 
I'm  only  twenty." 

"Ah  dear!  how  one  forgets!  Of  course,  but  he's  bad,  Fm 
afraid." 

"He's  very  bad.  Oh,  General  Pellew — because  I  know  it's 
you — his  cough  is  so  dreadful,  and  there's  no  air  for  him  because 
of  this  nasty  fog!  Poor  mamma's  there,  and  the  nurse.  I  ought 
to  hurry  back;  but  he  wanted  to  prevent  Major  Roper  coming 
round  and  getting  worse  himself;  so  we  agreed  for  me  to  come. 
I'll  just  give  my  message  and  get  back." 

"Your  mamma  was  Mrs.  Graythorpe.  I  remember  her  at 
Umballa  years  ago.  I  know;  she  changed  her  name  to  Nightin- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  253 

gale.  She  is  now  Mrs.  .  .  .  ?"  Sally  supplied  her  mother's 
married  name.  "And  you,"  continued  Lord  Pellew,  "were  Baby 
Graythorpe  on  the  boat." 

"Of  course.  You  came  home  with  Colonel  Lund;  he's  told 
me  about  that.  Wasn't  I  a  handful  ?"  Sally  is  keenly  interested. 

"A  small  handful.  You  see,  you  made  an  impression.  I  knew 
you  before,  though.  You  had  bitten  me  at  Umballa." 

"He's  told  me  about  that,  too.  Isn't  that  Major  Roper  com- 
ing now?"  If  it  is  not,  it  must  be  some  one  exactly  like  him, 
who  stops  to  swear  at  somebody  or  something  at  every  landing. 
He  comes  down  by  instalments.  Till  the  end  of  the  last  one, 
conversation  may  continue.  Sally  wants  to  know  more  about  her 
trajet  from  India — to  take  the  testimony  of  an  eyewitness. 
"Mamma  says  always  I  was  in  a  great  rage  because  they  wouldn't 
let  me  go  overboard  and  swim." 

"I  couldn't  speak  to  that  point.  It  seems  likely,  though.  I 
always  want  to  jump  overboard  now,  but  reason  restrains  me. 
You  were  not  reasonable  at  that  date." 

"It  is  funny,  though,  that  I  have  got  so  fond  of  swimming 
since.  I'm  quite  a  good  swimmer." 

Major  Roper  is  by  this  time  manifest  volcanically  at  the  bottom 
of  the  staircase,  but  before  he  comes  in  Lord  Pellew  has  time  to 
say  so  is  his  nasturtium  granddaughter  a  good  swimmer.  He 
has  thirteen,  and  has  christened  each  of  them  after  a  flower.  He 
hopes  thirteen  isn't  unlucky,  and  then  Major  Roper  comes  in 
apologetic.  Sally  can  just  recollect  having  seen  him  before,  and 
thinks  him  as  purple  as  ever. 

"Lund — er! — Lund — er! — Lund — er! — Lund,"  he  begins;  each 
time  he  says  the  name  being  baffled  by  a  gasp,  but  holding  tight  to 
Sally's  hand,  as  though  to  make  sure  of  her  staying  till  he  gets  a 
chance.  He  gets  none,  apparently,  for  he  gives  it  up,  whatever 
he  was  going  to  say,  with  the  hand,  and  says  instead,  in  a  lucky 
scrap  of  intermediate  breath:  "I  was  comin'  round — just  comin' — 
only  no  gettin'  those  dam  boots  on!"  And  then  becomes  con- 
vulsively involved  in  an  apology  for  swearing  before  a  young  lady. 
She,  for  her  part,  has  no  objection  to  his  damning  his  boots  if 
he  will  take  them  off,  and  not  go  out.  This  she  partly  conveys, 
and  then,  after  a  too  favourable  brief  report  of  the  patient's 
state — inevitable  under  the  circumstances — she  continues: 


254  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"That's  what  I  came  on  purpose  to  say,  Major  Roper.  You're 
not  to  come  out  on  any  account  in  the  fog.  Colonel  Lund 
wouldn't  be  any  better  for  your  coming,  because  he'll  think  of 
you  going  back  through  the  fog,  and  he'll  fret.  Please  do  give 
up  the  idea  of  coming  until  it  clears.  Besides,  he  isn't  my  grand- 
father." An  inconsecutive  finish  to  correct  a  mistake  of  Old 
Jack's.  She  resumes  the  chair  she  had  risen  from  when  he 
came  in,  and  thereupon  he,  suffering  fearfully  from  having  no 
breathing-apparatus  and  nothing  to  use  it  on,  makes  concession 
to  a  chair  himself,  but  all  the  while  waves  a  stumpy  finger  to 
keep  Sally's  last  remark  alive  till  his  voice  comes.  The  other  old 
soldier  remains  standing,  but  somewhat  on  Sally's  other  side,  so 
that  she  does  not  see  both  at  once.  A  little  voice,  to  be  used 
cautiously,  comes  to  the  Major  in  time. 

"Good  Lard,  my  dear — excuse — old  chap,  you  know! — why, 
good  Lard,  what  a  fool  I  am!  Why,  I  knoo  your  father  in 
India." 

But  he  stops  suddenly,  to  Sally  inexplicably.  She  does  not 
see  that  General  Pellew  has  laid  a  finger  of  admonition  on  his 
lips. 

"I  never  saw  my  father,"  she  says.  It  is  a  kind  of  formula 
of  hers  which  covers  all  contingencies  with  most  people.  This 
time  she  does  not  want  it  to  deadlock  the  conversation,  which 
is  what  it  usually  serves  for,  so  she  adds:  "You  really  knew 
him?" 

"Hardly  knoo,"  is  the  reply.  "Put  it  I  met  him  two  or  three 
times,  and  you'll  about  toe  the  line  for  a  start.  Goin'  off  at 
that,  we  soon  come  up  to  my  knowin'  the  Colonel's  not  your 
grandfather."  Major  Roper  does  not  get  through  the  whole  of 
the  last  word — asthma  forbids  it — but  his  meaning  is  clear. 
Only,  Sally  is  a  direct  Turk,  as  we  have  seen,  and  likes  clearing 
up  things. 

"You  know  my  friend  Lastitia  Wilson's  mother,  Major  Roper?" 
The  Major  expresses  not  only  that  he  does,  but  that  his  respectful 
homage  is  due  to  her  as  a  fine  woman — even  a  queenly  one — by 
kissing  his  finger-tips  and  raising  his  eyes  to  heaven.  "Well, 
Laetitia  (Tishy,  I  call  her)  says  you  told  her  mother  you  knew 
my  father  in  India,  and  went  out  tiger-hunting  with  him,  and  he 
shot  a  tiger  two  hundred  yards  off  and  gave  you  the  skin."  Sally 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  255 

lays  stress  on  the  two  hundred  yards  as  a  means  of  identification 
of  the  case.  No  doubt  the  Major  owned  many  skins,  but  shot  at 
all  sorts  of  distances. 

It  is  embarrassing  for  the  old  boy,  because  he  cannot  ignore 
General  Pellew's  intimations  over  Sally's  head,  which  she  does 
not  see.  He  is  to  hold  his  tongue — that  is  their  meaning.  Yes, 
but  when  you  have  made  a  mistake,  it  may  be  difficult  to  begin 
holding  it  in  the  middle.  Perhaps  it  would  have  been  safer  to 
lose  sight  of  the  subject  in  the  desert  of  asthma,  instead  of  reviv- 
ing it  the  moment  he  got  to  an  oasis. 

"Some  misunderstanding"  said  he,  .when  he  could  speak.  "I've 
got  a  tiger-skin  the  man  who  shot  it  gave  me  out  near  Nagpore, 
but  he  wasn't  your  father."  How  true  that  was! 

"Do  you  remember  his  name?"  Sally  wants  him  to  say  it  was 
Palliser  again,  to  prove  it  all  nonsense,  but  a  warning  finger  of 
the  old  General  makes  him  desperate,  and  he  selects,  as  partially 
true,  the  supposed  alias  which — do  you  remember  all  this? — he 
had  ascribed  to  the  tiger-shooter  in  his  subsequent  life  in 
Australia. 

"Perfectly  well.  His  name  was  Harrisson.  A  fine  shot.  He 
went  away  to  Australia  after  that." 

Sally  laughs  out.  "How  very  absurd  of  Tishy!"  she  says. 
"She  hadn't  even  got  the  name  you  said  right.  She  said  it  was 
Palliser.  It  sounds  like  Harrisson."  She  stopped  to  think  a 
minute.  "But  even  if  she  had  said  it  right  it  wouldn't  be  my 
father,  because  his  name,  you  know,  was  Graythorpe — like  mine 
before  we  both  changed  to  Nightingale — mother  and  I.  We 
did,  you  know." 

Old  Jack  assents  to  this  with  an  expenditure  of  breath  not 
warranted  where  breath  is  so  scarce.  He  cannot  say  "of  course," 
and  that  he  recollects,  too  often.  Perhaps  he  is  glad  to  get  on 
a  line  of  veracity.  The  General  says  "of  course,"  also.  "Your 
mother,  my  dear,  was  Mrs.  Graythorpe  when  I  knew  her  at 
Umballa  and  on  the  boat."  Both  these  veterans  call  Sally  "my 
dear,"  and  she  doesn't  resent  it. 

But  her  message  is  really  given,  and  she  ought  to  get  back. 
She  succeeds  in  finally  overruling  Major  Roper's  scheme  of  com- 
ing out  into  the  fog,  which  has  contrived  to  get  blacker  still 
during  this  conversation;  but  has  more  trouble  with  the  'other  old 


256  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

soldier.  She  only  overcomes  that  victor  in  so  many  battle- 
fields by  representing  that  if  he  does  see  her  safe  to  Ball  Street 
she  will  be  miserable  if  she  doesn't  see  him  safe  back  to  the 
club.  "And  then,"  she  adds,  "we  shall  go  on  till  doomsday. 
Besides,  I  am  young  and  sharp!"  At  which  the  old  General 
laughs,  and  says  isn't  he?  Ask  his  granddaughters!  Sally  says 
no,  he  isn't,  and  she  can't  have  him  run  over  to  please  anybody. 
However,  he  will  come  out  to  see  her  off,  though  Old  Jack  must 
do  as  he's  told,  and  stop  indoors.  He  watches  the  little  figure 
vanish  in  the  fog,  with  a  sense  of  the  merry  eyebrows  in  the 
pretty  shoulders,  like  the  number  of  a  cab  fixed  on  behind. 

When  General  Pellew  had  seen  Sally  out,  to  the  great  relief  of 
Gibbon  of  the  various  reds  in  the  lobby,  he  returned  and  drew  a 
chair  for  himself  beside  Major  Eoper,  who  still  sat,  wrestling 
with  the  fog,  where  he  had  left  him. 

"What  a  dear  child!  ...  Oh  yes;  she'll  be  all  right.  Take 
better  care  of  herself  than  I  should  of  her.  She  would  only  have 
been  looking  after  me,  to  see  that  I  didn't  get  run  over."  He 
glanced  round  and  dropped  his  voice,  leaning  forward  to  the 
Major.  "She  must  never  be  told." 

"You're  right,  Pelloo!  Dam  mistake  of  mine  to  say!  I'm  a 
dam  mutton-headed  old  gobblestick!  No  better!"  We  give  up 
trying  to  indicate  the  Major's  painful  interruptions  and  struggles. 
Of  course,  he  might  have  saved  himself  a  good  deal  by  saying  no 
more  than  was  necessary.  General  Pellew  was  much  more  con- 
cise and  to  the  purpose. 

''Never  be  told.  I  see  one  thing.  Her  mother  has  told  her 
little  or  nothing  of  the  separation." 

"No!     Dam  bad  business!     Keep  it  snug's  the  word." 

"You  saw  she  had  no  idea  of  the  name.  It  was  Palliser, 
wasn't  it?" 

"Unless  it  was  Verschoyle."  Major  Roper  only  says  this  to 
convince  himself  that  he  might  have  forgotten  the  name — a  sort 
of  washy  palliation  of  his  Harrisson  invention.  It  brings  him 
within  a  measurable  distance  of  a  clear  conscience. 

"No,  it  wasn't  Verschoyle.  I  remember  the  Verschoyle  case." 
By  this  time  Old  Jack  is  feeling  quite  truthful.  "It  was  Pal- 
liser, and  it's  not  for  me  to  blame  him.  He  only  did  what  you 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  257 

or  I  might  have  done — any  man.  A  bit  hot-headed,  perhaps. 
But  look  here,  Koper.  .  .  ." 

The  General  dropped  his  voice,  and  went  on  speaking  almost  in 
a  whisper,  but  earnestly,  for  more  than  a  minute.  Then  he 
raised  it  again. 

"It  was  that  point.  If  you  say  a  word  to  the  girl,  or  begin 
giving  her  any  information,  and  she  gets  the  idea  you  can  tell 
her  more,  she'll  just  go  straight  for  you  and  say  she  must  be  told 
the  whole.  I  can  see  it  in  her  eyes.  And  you  can't  tell  her  the 
whole.  You  know  you  can't!" 

The  Major  fidgeted  visibly.  He  knew  he  should  go  round  to 
learn  about  his  old  friend  (it  was  barely  a  quarter  of  a  mile)  as 
soon  as  the  least  diminution  of  the  fog  gave  him  an  excuse.  And 
he  was  sure  to  see  Sally.  He  exaggerated  her  age.  "The  gyairl's 
twenty-two,"  said  he  weakly.  The  General  continued: 

"I'm  only  speaking,  mind  you,  on  the  hypothesis.  .  .  .  I'm 
supposing  the  case  to  have  been  what  I  told  you  just  now.  Other- 
wise, you  could  work  the  telling  of  it  on  the  usual  lines — un- 
faithfulness, estranged  affections,  desertion — all  the  respectable 
produceable  phrases.  But  as  for  making  that  little  Miss  Nightin- 
gale understand — that  is,  without  making  her  life  unbearable  to 
her — it  can't  be  done,  Major.  It  can't  be  done,  old  chap!" 

"I  see  your  game.     I'll  tell  her  to  ask  her  mother." 

"It  can't  be  done  that  way.  I  hope  the  child's  safe  in  the  fog." 
The  General  embarked  on  a  long  pause.  There  was  plenty  of 
time — more  time  than  he  had  (so  his  thought  ran)  when  his  rear- 
guard was  cut  off  by  the  Afridis  in  the  Khyber  Pass.  But  then 
the  problem  was  not  so  difficult  as  telling  this  live  girl  how  she 
came  to  be  one — telling  her,  that  is,  without  poisoning  her  life 
and  shrouding  her  heart  in  a  fog  as  dense  as  the  one  that  was 
going  to  make  the  street-lamps  outside  futile  when  night  should 
come  to  help  it — telling  her  without  dashing  the  irresistible  glee 
of  those  eyebrows  and  quenching  the  smile  that  opened  the  casket 
of  pearls  that  all  who  knew  her  thought  of  her  by. 

Both  old  soldiers  sat  on  to  think  it  out.  The  older  one  first 
recognised  the  insolubility  of  the  problem.  "It  can't  be  done," 
said  he.  "Girls  are  not  alike.  She's  too  much  like  my  nas- 
turtium granddaughter  now  .  .  ." 

"I  shall  have  to  tell  her  dam  lies." 


258  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"That  won't  hurt  you,  Old  Jack." 

"I'm  not  complainin'." 

"Besides,  I  shall  have  to  tell  'em,  too,  as  likely  as  not.  You 
must  tell  me  what  you've  told,  so  as  to  agree.  I  should  go  round 
to  ask  after  Lund,  only  I  promised  to  meet  an  old  thirty-fifth 
man  here  at  five.  It's  gone  half-past.  He's  lost  in  the  fog.  But 
I  can't  go  away  till  he  comes."  Old  Jack  is  seized  with  an  un- 
reasoning sanguineness. 

"The  fog's  clearin',"  he  says.  "You'll  see,  it'll  be  quite  bright 
in  half-an-hour.  Nothin'  near  so  bad  as  it  was,  now.  Just  you 
look  at  that  window."  ' 

The  window  in  question,  when  looked  at,  was  not  encouraging. 
So  far  as  could  be  seen  at  all  through  the  turgid  atmosphere  of 
the  room,  it  was  a  parallelogram  of  solid  opacity  crossed  by  a 
window-frame,  with  a  hopeless  tinge  of  Roman  ochre.  But  Old 
Jack  was  working  up  fo  a  fiction  to  serve  a  purpose.  By  the 
time  he  had  succeeded  in  believing  the  fog  was  lifting  he  would 
be  absolved  from  his  promise  not  to  go  out  in  it.  It  was  a  trial 
of  strength  between  credulity  and  the  actual.  The  General 
looked  at  the  window  and  asked  a  bystander  what  he  thought, 
sir?  Who  felt  bound  to  testify  that  he  thought  the  prospect 
hopeless. 

"You're  allowin'  nothin'  for  the  time  of  day,"  said  Major 
Roper,  and  his  motive  was  transparent.  Sure  enough,  after  the 
General's  friend  had  come  for  him,  an  hour  late,  the  Major  took 
advantage  of  the  doubt  whether  absolute  darkness  was  caused 
by  fog  or  mere  night,  and  in  spite  of  all  remonstrances,  began 
pulling  on  his  overcoat  to  go  out.  He  even  had  the  effrontery  to 
appeal  to  the  hall-porter  to  confirm  his  views  about  the  state  of 
things  out  of  doors.  Mr.  Mulberry  added  his  dissuasions  with  all 
the  impressiveness  of  his  official  uniform  and  the  cubic  area  of 
its  contents.  But  even  his  powerful  influence  carried  no  weight 
in  this  case.  It  was  useless  to  argue  with  the  infatuated  old  boy, 
who  was  evidently  very  uneasy  about  Major  Lund,  and  suspected 
also  that  Miss  Nightingale  had  not  reported  fair,  in  order  to 
prevent  him  coming.  He  made  himself  into  a  perfect  bolster  with 
wraps,  and  put  on  a  respirator.  This  damned  thing,  however,  he 
took  off  again,  as  it  impeded  respiration,  and  then  went  out  into 
the  all  but  solid  fog,  gasping  and  choking  frightfully,  to  feel  his 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  259 

way  to  Hill  Street  and  satisfy  himself  the  best  thing  was  being 
done  to  his  old  friend's  bronchitis. 

"They'll  kill  him  with  their  dam  nostrums,"  said  he  to  the 
last  member  of  the  Club  he  spoke  to,  a  chance  ex-Secretary  of 
State  for  India,  whom  he  took  into  his  confidence  on  the  door- 
step. "A  little  common-sense,  sir — that's  what's  wanted  in  these 
cases.  It's  all  very  fine,  sir,  when  the  patient's  young  and  can 
stand  it.  .  .  ."  His  cough  interrupted  him,  but  he  was  under- 
stood to  express  that  medical  attendance  was  fraught  with  dan- 
ger to  persons  of  advanced  years,  and  that  in  such  cases  his  advice 
should  be  taken  in  preference  to  that  of  the  profession.  He  re- 
covered enough  to  tell  Mulberry's  subordinate  to  stop  blowin'  that 
dam  whistle.  There  were  cabs  enough  and  to  spare,  he  said,  but 
they  were  affecting  non-existence  from  malicious  motives,  and  as 
a  stepping-stone  to  ultimate  rapacity.  Then  he  vanished  in  the 
darkness,  and  was  heard  coughing  till  he  turned  a  corner. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

HOW  MAJOR  ROPER  MET  THAT  BOY,  AND  GOT  UPSTAIRS  AT  BALL  STREET. 
AN  INTERVIEW  BETWEEN  ASTHMA  AND  BRONCHITIS.  HOW  SALLY 
PINIONED  THE  PURPLE  VETERAN,  AND  THERE  WAS  NO  BOY.  HOW 
THE  GOVERNOR  DONE  HOARCKIN',  AND  GOT  QUALIFIED  FOR  A  SUBJECT 
OF  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

OLD  JACK'S  powers  of  self-delusion  were  great  indeed  if,  when 
he  started  on  his  short  journey,  he  really  believed  the  fog  had 
mended.  At  least,  it  was  so  dense  that  he  might  never  have 
found  his  way  without  assistance.  This  he  met  with  in  the 
shape  of  a  boy  with  a  link,  whom  Sally  at  once  identified  from 
his  description,  given  when  the  Major  had  succeeded  in  getting 
up  the  stairs  and  was  resting  in  the  sitting-room  near  the  old 
sabre  on  the  wall,  wiping  his  eyes  after  his  effort.  Colonel 
Lund  was  half-unconscious  after  a  bad  attack,  and  it  was  best 
not  to  disturb  him.  Fenwick  had  not  returned,  and  no  one  was 
very  easy  about  him.  But  every  one  affirmed  the  reverse,  and 
joined  in  a  sort  of  Creed  to  the  effect  that  the  fog  was  clearing. 
It  wasn't  and  didn't  mean  to  for  some  time.  But  the  unanimity 
of  the  creed  fortified  the  congregation,  as  in  other  cases.  No 
two  believers  doubted  it  at  once,  just  as  no  two  Alpine  climbers, 
strung  together  on  the  moraine  of  a  glacier,  lose  their  foothold 
at  the  same  time. 

"I  know  that  boy,"  said  Sally.  "His  nose  twists,  and  gives 
him  a  presumptuous  expression,  and  he  has  a  front  tooth  out 
and  puts  his  tongue  through.  Also  his  trousers  are  tied  on  with 
strings." 

"Everlastin'  young  beggar,  if  ever  there  was  one,"  says  the  old 
soldier,  in  a  lucid  interval  when  speech  is  articulate.  But  he 
is  allowing  colloquialism  to  run  riot  over  meaning.  No  ever- 
lasting person  can  ever  have  become  part  of  the  past  if  you  think 
of  it.  He  goes  on  to  say  that  the  boy  has  had  twopence  and  is 
to  come  back  for  fourpence  in  an  hour,  or  threepence  if  you  can 

260 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  261 

see  the  gas-lamps,  because  then  a  link  will  be  superfluous.  Sally 
recognises  the  boy  more  than  ever. 

"I  wonder,"  she  says,  "if  he's  waiting  outside.  Because  the 
party  of  the  house  might  allow  him  inside.  Do  you  think  I 
could  ask,  mother?" 

"You  might  try,  kitten,"  is  the  reply,  not  given  sanguinely. 
And  Sally  goes  off,  benevolent.  "Even  when  your  trousers  are 
tied  up  with  string,  a  fog's  a  fog,"  says  she  to  herself. 

"I  knoo  our  friend  Lund  first  of  all  .  .  ."  Thus  the  Major, 
nodding  towards  the  bedroom  door  .  .  .  "Why,  God  bless  my 
soul,  ma'am,  I  knew  Lund  first  of  all,  forty-six  years  ago  in  Delhi, 
Forty — six — years!  And  all  that  time,  if  you  believe  me,  he's 
been  the  same  obstinate  moole.  Never  takin'  a  precaution  about 
any  thin',  nor  listening  to  a  word  of  advice!"  This  is  about  as 
far  as  he  can  go  without  a  choke.  Rosalind  goes  into  the  next 
room  to  get  a  tumbler  of  water.  The  nurse,  who  is  sitting  by 
the  fire,  nods  towards  the  bed,  and  Rosalind  goes  close  to  it  to 
hear.  "What  is  it,  dear?"  She  speaks  to  the  invalid  as  to  a 
little  child. 

"Isn't  that  Old  Jack  choking?  I  know  his  choke.  What  does 
he  come  out  for  in  weather  like  this?  What  does  he  mean? 
Send  him  back.  .  .  .  No,  send  him  in  here."  The  nurse  puts 
in  a  headshake  as  protest.  But  for  all  that,  Sally  finds,  when 
she  returns,  that  the  two  veterans  are  contending  together  against 
their  two  enemies,  bronchitis  and  asthma,  with  the  Intelligence 
Department  sadly  interrupted,  and  the  enemy  in  possession  of  all 
the  advantageous  points. 

"He  oughtn't  to  try  to  talk,"  says  Rosalind.  "But  he  will." 
She  and  Sally  and  the  nurse  sit  on  in  the  fog-bound  front  room. 
The  gas-lights  have  no  heart  in  them,  and  each  wears  a  nimbus. 
Rosalind  wishes  Gerry  would  return,  aloud.  Sally  is  buoyant 
about  him;  he's  all  right,  trust  him!  What  about  the  everlasting 
young  beggar? 

"I  persuaded  Mrs.  Kindred,"  says  Sally.  "And  we  looked  out- 
side for  him,  and  he'd  gone." 

"Fancy  a  woman  being  named  Kindred!" 

"When  people  are  so  genteel  one  can  believe  anything!  But 
what  do  you  think  the  boy's  name  is?  ...  Chancellorship! 
Isn't  that  queer?  She  knows  him — says  he's  always  about  in 


262  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

the  neighbourhood.  He  sleeps  in  the  mews  behind  Great  Toff 
House." 

Her  mother  isn't  listening.  She  rises  for  a  moment  to  hear 
what  she  may  of  how  the  talk  in  the  next  room  goes  on;  and  then, 
coming  back,  says  again  she  wishes  Gerry  was  safe  indoors,  and 
Sally  again  says,  "Oh,  he's  all  right!"  The  confidence  these  two 
have  in  one  another  makes  them  a  couple  apart — a  sort  of  league. 

What  Mrs.  Fenwick  heard  a  scrap  of  in  the  next  room  would 
have  been,  but  for  the  alarums  and  excursions  of  the  two  enemies 
aforementioned,  a  consecutive  conversation  as  follows: 

"You're  gettin'  round,  Colonel?" 

"A  deal  better,  Major.     I  want  to  speak  to  you." 

"Fire  away,  old  Cocky  wax!  You  remember  Hopkins? — Cart- 
wright  Hopkins — man  with  a  squint — at  Mooltan — expression  of 
his,  'Old  Cockywax/ " 

"I  remember  him.  Died  of  typhoid  at  Burrampore.  Now 
you  listen  to  me,  old  chap,  and  don't  talk — you  only  make  your- 
self cough." 

"It's  only  the  dam  fog.     Tm  all  right." 

"Well,  shut  up.  That  child  in  the  next  room — it's  her  I  want 
to  talk  about.  You're  the  only  man,  as  far  as  I  know,  that  knows 
the  story.  She  doesn't.  She's  not  to  be  told." 

"Mum's  the  word,  sir.  Always  say  nothin',  that's  my  motto. 
Penderfield's  daughter  at  Khopal — at  least,  he  was  her  father. 
One  dam  father's  as  good  as  another,  as  long  as  he  goes  to  the 
devil."  This  may  be  a  kind  of  disclaimer  of  inheritance  as  a 
factor  to  be  reckoned  with,  an  obscure  suggestion  that  human 
parentage  is  without  influence  on  character.  It  is  not  well 
expressed. 

"Listen  to  me,  Koper.  You  know  the  story.  That's  the  only 
man  I  can't  say  God  forgive  him  to.  God  forgive  me,  but  I 
can't." 

"Devil  take  me  if  I  can!  .  .  .  Yes,  it's  all  right.  They're 
all  in  the  next  room.  .  .  ." 

"But  the  woman  was  worse.     She's  living,  you  know.  .  .  ." 

"I  know — shinin'  light — purifying  society — that's  her  game! 
I'd  purify  her,  if  I  had  my  way." 

"Come  a  bit  nearer — my  voice  goes.  I've  thought  it  all  out. 
If  the  girl,  who  supposes  herself  to  be  the  daughter  of  her 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  263 

mother's  husband,  tries  to  run  you  into  a  corner — you  under- 
stand?" 

"I  understand." 

"Well,  don't  you  undeceive  her.  Her  mother  has  never  told 
her  anything.  She  doesn't  suppose  she  had  any  hand  in  the 
divorce.  She  thinks  his  name  was  Graythorpe,  and  doesn't  know 
he  wasn't  her  father.  Don't  you  undeceive  her — promise." 

But  the  speaker  is  so  near  the  end  of  his  tether  that  the  Major 
has  barely  time  to  say,  "Honour  bright,  Colonel,"  when  the 
bronchial  storm  bursts.  It  may  be  that  the  last  new  anodyne, 
which  is  warranted  to  have  all  the  virtues  and  none  of  the  ill- 
effects  of  opium,  had  also  come  to  the  end  of  its  tether.  Mrs. 
Fen  wick  came  quickly  in,  saying  he  had  talked  too  much;  and 
Sally,  following  her,  got  Major  Roper  away,  leaving  the  patient 
to  her  mother  and  the  nurse.  The  latter  knew  what  it  would 
be  with  all  this  talking — now  the  temperature  would  go  up,  and 
he  would  have  a  bad  night,  and  what  would  Dr.  Mildmay 
say? 

Till  the  storm  had  subsided  and  a  new  dose  of  the  sedative 
had  been  given,  Sally  and  Old  Jack  stood  waiting  in  sympathetic 
pain — you  know  what  it  is  when  you  can  do  nothing.  The 
latter  derived  some  insignificant  comfort  from  suggestions 
through  his  own  choking  that  all  this  was  due  to  neglect  of  his 
advice.  When  only  moans  and  heavy  breathing  were  left,  Sally 
went  back  into  the  bedroom.  Her  mother  was  nursing  the  poor 
old  racked  head  on  her  bosom,  with  the  sword-hand  of  the  days 
gone  by  in  her  own.  She  said  without  speaking  that  he  would 
sleep  presently,  and  the  fewer  in  the  room  the  better,  and  Sally 
left  them  so,  and  went  back. 

Yes,  the  Major  would  take  some  toddy  before  he  started  for 
home.  And  it  was  all  ready,  lemons  and  all,  in  the  black  polished 
wood  cellaret,  with  eagles'  claws  for  feet.  Sally  got  the  in- 
gredients out  and  began  to  make  it.  But  first  she  gently  closed 
the  door  between  the  rooms,  to  keep  the  sound  of  their  voices  in. 

"You  really  did  see  my  father,  though.  Major?"  There 
seemed  to  be  a  good  deal  of  consideration  before  the  answer  came, 
not  all  to  be  accounted  for  by  asthma. 

"Yes — certainly — oh  yes.  I  saw  Mr.  Graythorpe  once  or  twice. 
Another  spoonful — that's  plenty."  A  pause. 


264  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Now,  don't  spill  it.  Take  care,  it's  very  hot.  That's  right." 
Another  pause.  "Major  Eoper.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  my  dear.     What?" 

"Do  tell  me  what  he  was  like." 

"Have  you  never  seen  his  portrait?" 

"Mother  burnt  it  while  I  was  small.  She  told  me.  Do  tell 
me  what  you  recollect  him  like." 

"Fine  handsome  feller — well  set  up.  Fine  shot,  too!  Gad! 
that  was  a  neat  thing!  A  bullet  through  a  tiger  two  hundred 
yards  off  just  behind  the  ear." 

"But  I  thought  his  name  was  Harrisson."  The  Major  has  got 
out  of  his  depth  entirely  through  his  own  rashness.  Why 
couldn't  he  leave  that  tiger  alone?  Now  he  has  to  get  into  safe 
water  again. 

A  good  long  choke  is  almost  welcome  at  this  moment.  While 
it  goes  on  he  can  herald,  by  a  chronic  movement  of  a  raised 
finger,  his  readiness  to  explain  all  as  soon  as  it  stops.  He  catches 
at  his  first  articulation,  so  that  not  a  moment  may  be  lost.  There 
were  two  tigers — that's  the  explanation.  Harrisson  shot  one,  and 
Graythorpe  the  other.  The  cross-examiner  is  dissatisfied. 

"Which  was  the  one  that  shot  the  tiger  two  hundred  yards  off, 
just  behind  the  ear?" 

The  old  gentleman  responds  with  a  spirited  decision:  "Your 
father,  my  dear,  your  father.  That  tiger  round  at  my  rooms — 
show  it  you  if  you  like — that  skin  was  given  me  by  a  feller  named 
Harrisson,  in  the  Commissariat — quite  another  sort  of  Johnny. 
He  was  down  with  the  Central  Indian  Horse — quite  another 
place!"  He  dwells  on  the  inferiority  of  this  shot,  the  smallness 
of  the  skin,  the  close  contiguity  of  its  owner.  A  very  inferior 
affair ! 

But,  being  desperately  afraid  of  blundering  again,  he  makes 
the  fact  he  admits,  that  he  had  confoozed  between  the  two  cases, 
a  reason  for  a  close  analysis  of  the  merits  of  each.  This  has 
no  interest  for  Sally,  who,  indeed,  had  only  regarded  the  con- 
versation, so  far,  as  a  stepping-stone  she  now  wanted  to  leap  to 
the  mainland  from.  After  all,  here  she  is  face-to-face  with  a 
man  who  actually  knows  the  story  of  the  separation,  and  can 
talk  of  it  without  pain.  Why  should  she  not  get  something  from 
him,  however  little?  You  see,  the  idea  of  a  something  that 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  205 

could  not  be  told  was  necessarily  foreign  to  a  mind  some  some- 
things could  not  be  told  to.  But  she  felt  it  would  be  difficult  to 
account  to  Major  Roper  for  her  own  position.  The  fact  that  she 
knew  nothing  proved  that  her  mother  and  Colonel  Lund  had 
been  anxious  she  should  know  nothing.  She  could  not  refer  to 
an  outsider  over  their  heads.  Still,  she  hoped,  as  Major  Roper 
was  deemed  on  all  hands  an  arrant  old  gossip,  that  he  might 
accidentally  say  something  to  enlighten  her.  She  prolonged  the? 
conversation  in  this  hope. 

"Was  that  before  I  was  born?" 

"The  tiger-shootin' ?  Well,  reely,  my  dear,  I  shouldn't  like 
to  say.  It's  twenty  years  ago,  you  see.  No,  I  couldn't  say — 
couldn't  say  when  it  was."  He  is  beginning  to  pack  himself  in 
a  long  woollen  scarf  an  overcoat  with  fur  facings  will  shortly 
cover  in,  and  is,  in  fact,  preparing  to  evacuate  a  position  he  finds 
untenable.  "I  must  be  thinkin'  of  gettin'  home,"  he  says.  Sally 
tries  for  a  word  more. 

"Was  it  before  he  and  mother  fell  out?"  It  is  on  the  Major's 
lips  to  say,  "Before  the  proceedings?"  but  he  changes  the  ex- 
pression. 

"Before  the  split?  Well,  no;  I  should  say  after  the  split. 
Yes — probably  after  the  split."  But  an  unfortunate  garrulity 
prompts  him  to  say  more.  "After  the  split,  I  should  say,  and 

before  the " — and  then  he  feels  he  is  in  a  quagmire,  and 

flounders  to  the  nearest  land — "before  your  father  went  away 
to  Australia."  Then  he  discerns  his  own  feebleness,  recognising 
the  platitude  of  this  last  remark.  For  nobody  could  shoot  tigers 
in  an  Indian  jungle  after  he  had  gone  off  to  Australia.  Clearly 
the  sooner  he  gets  away  the  better. 

A  timely  choking-fit  interposes  to  preserve  its  victim  from 
further  questioning.  The  patient  in  the  next  room  is  asleep 
or  torpid,  so  he  omits  farewells.  Sally's  mother  comes  out  to  say 
'good-night,  and  Sally  goes  down  the  staircase  with  him  and  his 
asthma,  feeling  that  it  is  horrible  and  barbarous  to  turn  him  out 
alone  in  the  dense  blackness.  Perhaps,  however,  the  peculiar  boy 
with  the  strange  name  will  be  there.  That  would  be  better  than 
nothing.  Sally  feels  there  is  something  indomitable  about  that 
boy,  and  that  fog  nourishes  and  stimulates  it. 

But,  alas! — there  is  no  boy.     And  yet  it  certainly  would  be 


266  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

fourpence  if  he  came  back.  For,  though  it  may  be  possible  to 
see  the  street  gas-lamps  without  getting  inside  the  glass,  you 
can't  see  them  from  the  pavement.  Nevertheless,  the  faith  that 
"it"  is  clearing  having  been  once  founded,  lives  on  itself  in  the 
face  of  evidence,  even  as  other  faiths  have  done  before  now.  So 
the  creed  is  briefly  recited,  and  the  Major  disappears  with  the 
word  good-night  still  on  his  lips,  and  his  cough,  gasp,  or  choke 
dies  away  in  the  fog  as  he  vanishes. 

Somebody  is  whistling  "Arr-hyd-y-nos"  as  he  comes  from  the 
other  side  in  the  darkness — somebody  who  walks  with  a  swinging 
step  and  a  resonant  foot-beat,  some  one  who  cares  nothing  for 
fogs.  Fenwick's  voice  is  defiant  of  it,  exhilarated  and  exhilarat- 
ing, as  he  ceases  to  be  a  cloud  and  assumes  an  outline.  Sally 
gives  a  kiss  to  frozen  hair  that  crackles. 

"What's  the  kitten  after,  out  in  the  cold?    How's  the  Major?" 

"Which?  Our  Major?  He's  a  bit  better,  and  the  tempera- 
ture's lower."  Sally  believed  this;  a  little  thermometer  thing 
was  being  wielded  as  an  implement  of  optimism,  and  had  lent 
itself  to  delusions. 

"Oh,  how  scrunchy  you  are,  your  hands  are  all  ice!  Mamma's 
been  getting  in  a  stew  about  you,  squire."  On  which  Fenwick, 
with  the  slightest  of  whistles,  passes  Sally  quickly  and  goes  four 
steps  at  a  time  up  the  stairs,  still  illuminated  by  Sally's  gas- 
waste.  For  she  had  left  the  lights  at  full  cock  all  the  way 
up. 

"My  dearest,  you  never  got  my  telegram?"  This  is  to  Rosa- 
lind, who  has  come  out  on  the  landing  to  meet  him.  But  the 
failure  of  the  telegram — lost  in  the  fog,  no  doubt — is  a  small 
matter.  What  shelves  it  is  the  patient  grief  on  the  tired,  hand- 
some face  Fenwick  finds  tears  on  as  he  kisses  it.  Sally  has  the 
optimism  all  to  herself  now.  Her  mother  knows  that  her  old 
friend  and  protector  will  not  be  here  long — that,  of  course,  has 
been  true  some  time.  But  there's  the  suffering,  present  and  to 
come. 

"We  needn't  stop  the  chick  hoping  a  little  still  if  she  likes." 
She  says  it  in  a  whisper.  Sally  is  on  the  landing  below;  she  hears 
the  whispering,  and  half  guesses  its  meaning.  Then  she  sup- 
presses the  last  gas-tap,  and  follows  on  into  the  front  room,  where 
the  three  sit  talking  in  undertones  for  perhaps  aa  hour. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  267 

Yes,  that  monotonous  sound  is  the  breathing  of  the  patient  in 
the  next  room,  under  the  new  narcotic  which  has  none  of  the 
bad  effects  of  opium.  The  nurse  is  there  watching  him,  and 
wondering  whether  it  will  be  a  week,  or  twenty-four  hours.  She 
derives  an  impression  from  something  that  the  fog  really  is 
clearing  at  last,  and  goes  to  the  window  to  see.  She  is  right, 
for  at  a  window  opposite  are  dimly  visible,  from  the  candles  on 
either  side  of  the  mirror,  two  white  arms  that  are  "doing"  the 
hair  of  a  girl  whose  stays  are  much  too  tight.  She  is  dressing 
for  late  dinner  or  an  early  party.  Then  the  nurse,  listening, 
understands  that  the  traffic  has  been  roused  from  its  long 
lethargy.  "I  thought  I  heard  the  wheels,"  she  says  to  herself. 
Then  Sally  also  becomes  aware  of  the  sound  in  the  traffic,  and 
goes  to  her  window  in  the  front  room. 

<fYou  see  I'm  right,"  she  says.  "The  people  are  letting  their 
fires  out,  and  the  fog's  giving.  Now  I'm  going  to  take  you  home, 
Jeremiah."  For  the  understanding  is  that  these  two  shall  return 
to  Krakatoa  Villa,  leaving  Rosalind  to  watch  with  the  nurse. 
She  will  get  a  chop  in  half  an  hour's  time.  She  can  sleep  on  the 
sofa  in  the  front  room  if  she  feels  inclined.  All  which  is  duty 
carried  out  or  arranged  for. 

After  her  supper  Rosalind  sat  on  by  herself  before  the  fire  in 
the  front  room.  She  did  not  'want  to  be  unsociable  with  the 
nurse;  but  she  wanted  to  think,  alone.  A  weight  was  on  her 
mind;  the  thought  that  the  dear  old  friend,  who  had  been  her 
father  and  refuge,  should  never  know  that  she  again  possessed 
her  recovered  husband  on  terms  almost  as  good  as  if  that  deadly 
passage  in  her  early  life  had  never  blasted  the  happiness  of  both. 
He  would  die,  and  it  would  have  made  him  so  happy  to  know  it. 
Was  she  right  in  keeping  it  back  now?  Had  she  ever  been  right? 

But  if  she  told  him  now,  the  shock  of  the  news  might  hasten 
his  collapse.  Sudden  news  need  not  be  bad  to  cause  sudden 
death.  And,  maybe  the  story  would  be  too  strange  for  him  to 
grasp.  Better  be  silent  But  oh!  if  he  might  have  shared  her 
happiness! 

Drowsiness  was  upon  her  before  she  knew  it.  Better  perhaps 
sleep  a  little  now,  while  he  was  sleeping.  She  looked  in  at  him, 
and  spoke  to  the  nurse.  He  lay  there  like  a  lifeless  waxwork — 
blown  through,  like  an  apparatus  out  of  order,  to  simulate 


268  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

breath,  and  doing  it  badly.  How  could  he  sleep  when  now  and 
then  it  jerked  him  so?  He  could,  and  she  left  him  and  lay  down, 
and  went  suddenly  to  sleep.  After  a  time  that  was  a  journey 
through  a  desert,  without  landmarks,  she  was  as  suddenly  waked. 

"What?  ...  I  thought  you  spoke.  .  .  ."  And  so  some  one 
had  spoken,  but  not  to  her.  She  started  up,  and  went  to  where 
the  nurse  was  conversing  through  the  open  window  with  an  in- 
articulate person  in  the  street  below,  behind  the  thick  window- 
curtain  she  had  kept  overlapped,  to  check  the  freezing  air. 

"What  is  it?" 

"It's  a  boy.     I  can't  make  out  what  he  says." 

"Let  me  come!"  But  Eosalind  gets  no  nearer  his  meaning. 
She  ends  up  with,  "I'll  come  down,"  and  goes.  The  nurse  closes 
the  window  and  goes  back  to  the  bedroom. 

The  street  door  opens  easily,  the  Chubb  lock  being  the  only 
fastening.  The  moment  Rosalind  sees  the  boy  near  she  recog- 
nises him.  There  is  no  doubt  about  the  presumptuous  expression, 
or  the  cause  of  it.  Also  the  ostentatious  absence  of  the  front 
tooth,  clearly  accounting  for  inaudibility  at  a  distance. 

"What  do  you  want?"  asks  Rosalind. 

"Nothin'  at  all  for  myself.  I  come  gratis,  I  did.  There's  a 
many  wouldn't."  He  is  not  too  audible,  even  now;  but  he  would 
be  better  if  he  did  not  suck  the  cross-rail  of  the  area  paling. 

"Why  did  you  come?" 

"To  bring  you  the  nooze.  The  old  bloke's  a  friend  of  yours, 
missis.  Or  p'r'aps  he  ain't!  I  can  mizzle,  you  know,  and  no 
harm  done." 

"Oh  no,  don't  mizzle  on  any  account.  Tell  me  about  the  old 
bloke.  Do  you  mean  Major  Roper?" 

"Supposin'  I  do,  why  shouldn't  I?"  This  singular  boy  seems 
to  have  no  way  of  communicating  with  his  species  except  through 
defiances  and  refutations.  Rosalind  accepts  his  question  as  an 
ordinary  assent,  and  does  not  make  the  mistake  of  entering  into 
argument. 

"Is  he  ill?"  The  boy  nods.  "Is  he  worse?"  Another  nod. 
"Has  he  gone  home  to  his  club?"  The  boy  evidently  has  a 
revelation  to  make,  but  would  consider  it  undignified  to  make  it 
except  as  a  denial  of  something  to  the  contrary.  He  sees  his 
way  after  a  brief  reflection. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  269 

"He  ain't  gone.     He's  been  took." 

"He's  been  taken?     How  has  he  been  taken?" 

"On  a  perambulance.  Goin'  easy !  But  he  didn't  say  nothin'. 
Not  harf  a  word!" 

"Had  he  fainted?"  But  this  boy  has  another  characteristic — 
when  he  cannot  understand  he  will  not  admit  it.  He  keeps 
silence,  and  goes  on  absorbing  the  railing.  Rosalind  asks  further: 
"Was  he  dead?" 

"It'd  take  a  lawyer  to  tell  that,  missis." 

"I  can't  stand  here  in  the  cold,  my  boy.  Come  in,  and  come 
up  and  tell  us."  So  he  comes  up,  and  Rosalind  speaks  to  the 
nurse  in  the  other  room,  who  comes;  and  then  they  turn  seriously 
to  getting  the  boy's  story. 

He  is  all  the  easier  for  examination  from  the  fact  that  he  is 
impressed,  if  not  awed,  by  his  surroundings.  All  the  bounce 
is  knocked  out  of  him,  now  that  his  foot  is  no  longer  on 
his  native  heath,  the  street.  Witness  that  the  subject  of  his 
narrative,  who  would  certainly  have  been  the  old  bloke  where 
there  was  a  paling  to  suck,  has  become  a  simple  pronoun,  and  no 
more! 

"I  see  him  afore,  missis,"  he  says.  "That  time  wot  I  lighted 
him  round  for  twopence.  And  he  says  to  come  again  in  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour.  And  I  says  yes,  I  says.  And  he  says  not 
to  be  late.  Nor  yet  I  shouldn't,  only  the  water  run  so  slow  off 
the  main,  and  I  was  kep.  .  .  .  Yes,  missis — a  drorin'  of  it  off 
in  their  own  pails  at  the  balkny  house  by  the  mooze,  where  the 
supply  is  froze.  .  .  ." 

"I  see,  you  got  a  job  to  carry  up  pails  of  water  from  that  thing 
that  sticks  up  in  the  road?" 

"Yes,  missis;  by  means  of  the  turncock.  Sim'lar  I  got  wet. 
But  I  didn't  go  to  be  late.  It  warn't  much,  in  the  manner  of 
speakin'.  I  was  on  his  'eels,  clost." 

"You  caught  him?" 

"Heard  him  hoarckin'  in  the  fog,  and  I  says  to  my  mate — boy 
by  the  name  of  'Ucklebridge,  only  chiefly  called  Slimy,  to  dis- 
tinguish him — I  says — I  says  that  was  my  guv'nor,  safe  and 
square,  by  the  token  of  the  sound  of  it.  And  then  I  catches 
him  up  in  the  fog,  follerin'  by  the  sound.  My  word,  missis,  he 
was  bad!  Wanted  to  holler  me  over  the  coals,  he  did,  for  behind 


270-  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ray  time.  I  could  hear  him  wantin'  to  do  it.  But  he  couldn't 
come  by  the  breath." 

Poor  Old  Jack!  The  two  women  look  at  each  other,  and  then 
say  to  the  boy:  "Go  on." 

"Holdin'  by  the  palins,  he  was,  and  goin'  slow.  Then  he 
choked  it  off  like,  and  got  a  chanst  for  a  word,  and  he  says: 
'Now,  you  young  see-saw' — that's  what  he  said,  missis,  'see-saw' — 
'just  you  stir  your  stumps  and  cut  along  to  the  clubbus:  and  tell 
that  dam  red-faced  fool  Mulberry  to  look  sharp  and  send  one  of 
the  young  fellers  to  lend  an  arm,  and  not  to  come  hisself.  And 
then  he  got  out  a  little  flat  bottle  of  something  short,  and  went 
for  a  nip;  but  the  cough  took  him,  and  it  sprouted  over  his 
wropper  and  was  wasted." 

The  women  look  at  each  other  again.  The  nurse  sees  well 
into  the  story,  and  says  quickly  under  her  breath  to  Kosalind: 
"He'd  been  told  what  to  do  if  he  felt  it  coming.  A  drop  of 
brandy  might  have  made  the  difference."  The  boy  goes  on  as 
soon  as  he  is  waited  for. 

"Mr.  Mulberry  he  comes  runnin'  hisself,  and  a  couple  more  on 
'em!  And  then  they  all  calls  me  a  young  varmint  by  reason  of 
the  guv'nor  having  got  lost.  But  a  gentleman  what  comes  up, 
he  says  all  go  opposite  ways,  he  says,  and  you'll  hear  him  in  the 
fog.  So  I  runs  up  a  parsage,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  parsage 
I  tumbles  over  the  guv'nor  lyin'  acrost  the  parsage.  Then  I 
hollers,  and  then  they  come." 

"Oh  dear!"  says  Rosalind;  for  this  boy  had  that  terrible  power 
of  vivid  description  which  flinches  at  no  realism — seems  to  enjoy 
the  horror  of  it;  does  not  really.  Probably  it  was  only  his  intense 
anxiety  to  communicate  all,  struggling  with  his  sense  of  his  lack 
of  language — a  privilege  enjoyed  by  guv'nors.  But  Eosalind 
feels  the  earnestness  of  his  brief  epic.  He  winds  it  up: 

"But  the  guv'nor,  he'd  done  hoarckin'.  Nor  he  never  spoke. 
The  gentleman  I  told  you,  he  says  leave  him  lyin'  a  minute,  he 
says,  and  he  runs.  Then  back  he  comes  with  the  apoarthecary — 
him  with  the  red  light — and  they  rips  the  guv'nor's  sleeves  up, 
spilin'  his  coat.  And  they  prokes  into  his  arm  with  a  packin'- 
needle.  Much  use  it  done!  And  then  they  says,  it  warn't  the 
fog,  and  I  called  'em  a  liar.  'Cos  it's  a  clearin'  off,  they  says. 
It  warn't,  not  much.  I  see  the  perambulance  come,  and  they 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  271 

shoved  him  in,  and  I  hooked  it  off,  and  heard  'em  saying  where's 
that  young  shaver,  they  says;  he'll  be  wanted  for  his  testament. 
So  I  hooked  it  off." 

"And  where  did  you  go?"  . 

"To  a  wisit  on  a  friend,  I  did.  Me  and  Slimy — him  I  men- 
tioned afore.  And  he  says,  he  says,  to  come  on  here — on'y  later. 
So  then  I  come  on  here." 

Rosalind  finds  herself,  in  the  face  of  what  she  feels  must  mean 
Old  Jack's  sudden  death,  thinking  how  sorry  she  is  she  can 
command  no  pair  of  trousers  of  a  reasonable  size  to  replace  this 
boy's  drenched  ones — a  pair  that  would  need  no  string.  A  crude 
brew  of  hot  toddy,  and  most  of  the  cake  that  had  appealed  to 
Major  Roper  in  vain,  and  never  gone  back  to  the  cellaret,  were 
the  only  consolations  possible.  They  seemed  welcome,  but  un- 
der protest. 

"Shan't  I  carry  of  'em  outside,  missis?" 

"On  the  stairs,  then."  This  assent  is  really  because  both 
women  believe  he  will  be  comfortabler  there  than  in  the  room. 
"Where  are  you  going  to  sleep?"  Rosalind  asks,  as  he  takes  the 
cake  and  tumbler  away  to  the  stairs.  She  puts  a  gas-jet  on  half- 
cock. 

"Twopenny  doss  in  Spur  Street,  off  of  'Orseferry  Road,  West- 
minster." This  identification  is  to  help  Rosalind,  as  she  may 
not  be  able  to  spot  this  particular  doss-house  among  all  she 
knows. 

"Do  you  always  sleep  there?" 

"No,  missis!  Weather  permitting,  in  our  mooze — on  the  'eap. 
The  'orse-keeper  gives  a  sack  in  return  for  a  bit  of  cleanin',  early, 
before  com  in'  away." 

"What  are  you?"  says  Rosalind.  She  is  thinking  aloud  more 
than  asking  a  question.  But  the  boy  answers: 

"I'm  a  wife,  I  am.  Never  learned  no  tride,  ye  see!  .... 
Oh  yes;  I've  been  to  school — board-school  scollard.  But  they 
don't  learn  you  no  tride.  You  parses  your  standards  and  chucks 
'em."  This  incredible  boy,  who  deliberately  called  himself  a 
waif  (that  was  his  meaning),  was  it  possible  that  he  had  passed 
through  a  board-school?  Well,  perhaps  he  was  the  highest  type 
of  competitive  examinee,  who  can  learn  everything  and  forget 
everything. 


272  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"But  you  have  a  father?" 

"I  could  show  him  you.  But  he  don't  hold  with  teachin'  his 
sons  trides,  by  reason  of  their  gettin'  some  of  his  wiges.  He's 
in  the  sanitary  engineering  himself,  but  he  don't  do  no  work." 
Rosalind  looks  puzzled.  "That's  his  tride — sanitary  engineer- 
ing, lavatries,  plumbin',  and  fittin'.  Been  out  of  work  better 
than  three  years.  He  can  jint  you  off  puppies'  tails,  though,  at 
a  shillin'.  But  he  don't  only  get  a  light  job  now  and  again,  'cos 
the  tride  ain't  wot  it  was.  They've  been  shearin'  of  'em  off  of 
late  years.  Thank  you,  missis."  The  refreshments  have  van- 
ished as  by  magic,  and  Rosalind  gives  the  boy  the  rest  of  the 
cake  and  a  coin,  and  he  goes  away  presumably  to  the  doss-house 
he  smells  so  strong  of,  having  been  warmed,  that  a  flavour  of  the 
heap  in  the  mews  would  have  been  welcome  in  exchange.  So 
Rosalind  thinks  as  she  opens  the  window  a  moment  and  looks 
out.  She  can  quite  see  the  houses  opposite.  The  fog  has  cleared 
till  the  morning. 

Perhaps  it  is  the  relenting  of  the  atmospheric  conditions,  or 
perhaps  it  is  the  oxygen  that  the  patient  has  been  inhaling  off 
and  on,  that  has  slightly  revived  him.  Or  perhaps  it  is  the 
champagne  that  comes  up  through  a  tap  in  the  cork,  and  reminds 
Rosalind's  ill-slept  brain  of  something  heard  very  lately — what 
on  earth  exactly  was  it?  Oh,  she  knows!  Of  course,  the  thing 
in  the  street  the  sanitary  engineer's  son  drew  the  pails  of  water 
at  for  the  house  with  the  balcony.  It  is  pleasanter  to  know; 
might  have  fidgeted  her  if  she  had  not  found  out.  But  she  is 
badly  in  want  of  sleep,  that's  the  truth! 

"I  thought  Major  Roper  was  gone,  Rosey."  He  can  talk 
through  his  heavy  breathing.  It  must  be  the  purer  air. 

"So  he  is,  dear.  He  went  two  hours  ago."  She  sits  by  him, 
taking  his  hand  as  before.  The  nurse  is,  by  arrangement,  to 
take  her  spell  of  sleep  now. 

"I  suppose  it's  my  head.  I  thought  he  was  here  just  now — 
just  this  minute." 

"No,  dear;  you've  mixed  him  up  with  Gerry,  when  he  came  in 
to  say  good-night.  Major  Roper  went  away  first.  It  wasn't 
seven  o'clock."  But  there  is  something  excited  and  puzzled  in 
the  patient's  voice  as  he  answers — something  that  makes  her 
feel  creepy. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  273 

"Are  you  sure?  I  mean,  when  he  caine  back  into  the  room 
with  his  coat  on." 

"You  are  dreaming,  dear!  He  never  came  back.  He  went 
straight  away." 

"Dreaming!  Not  a  bit  of  it.  You  weren't  here."  He  is  so 
positive  that  Rosalind  thinks  best  to  humour  him. 

"I  suppose  I  was  speaking  to  Mrs.  Kindred.  What  did  he 
come  back  to  say,  dear?" 

"Oh,  nothing!  At  least,  I  had  told  him  not  to  chatter  to 
Sallykin  about  the  old  story,  and  he  came  back,  I  suppose,  to  say 
he  wouldn't."  He  seemed  to  think  the  incident,  as  an  incident, 
closed;  but  presently  goes  on  talking  about  things  that  arise 
from  it. 

"Old  Jack's  the  only  one  of  them  all  that  knew  anything 
about  it — that  Sallykin  is  likely  to  come  across.  Pellew  knew,  of 
course;  but  he's  not  an  old  chatterbox  like  Roper." 

Ought  not  Rosalind  to  tell  the  news  that  has  just  reached  her? 
She  asks  herself  the  question,  and  answers  it:  "Not  till  he  rallies, 

certainly.  If  he  does  not  rally,  why  then !"  Why  then  he 

either  will  know  or  won't  want  to. 

She  has  far  less  desire  to  tell  him  this  than  she  has  to  talk 
of  the  identity  of  her  husband.  She  would  almost  be  glad,  as 
he  is  to  die — her  old  friend — that  she  should  have  some  cer- 
tainty beforehand  of  the  exact  time  of  his  death,  so  that  she 
might,  only  for  an  hour,  have  a  companion  in  her  secrecy.  If 
only  he  and  she  might  have  borne  the  burden  of  it  together! 
She  reproached  herself,  now  that  it  was  too  late,  with  her  mis- 
trust of  his  powers  of  retaining  a  secret.  See  how  keenly  alive 
he  was  to  the  need  of  keeping  Sally's  parentage  in  the  dark! 
And  that  was  what  the  whole  thing  turned  on.  Gerry's  con- 
tinued ignorance  might  be  desirable,  but  was  a  mere  flea-bite  by 
comparison.  In  her  strained,  sleepless,  overwrought  state  the 
wish  that  "the  Major"  should  know  of  her  happiness  while  they 
could  still  speak  of  it  together  grew  from  a  passing  thought  of 
how  nice  it  might  have  been,  that  could  not  be,  to  a  dumb 
dominant  longing  that  it  should  be.  Still,  after  all,  the  only 
fear  was  that  he  should  talk  to  Gerry;  and  how  easy  to  keep 
Gerry  out  of  the  room!  And  suppose  he  did  talk!  Would 
Gerry  believe  him?  There  was  risky  ground  there,  though. 


274  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

She  was  not  sorry  when  no  more  speech  came  through  the 
heavy  breathing  of  the  invalid.  He  had  talked  a  good  deal,  and 
a  semi-stupor  followed,  relieving  her  from  the  strong  tempta- 
tion she  had  felt  to  lead  him  back  to  their  past  memories,  and 
feel  for  some  means  of  putting  him  in  possession  of  the  truth. 
As  the  tension  of  her  mind  grew  less,  she  became  aware  this 
would  have  been  no  easy  thing  to  do.  Then,  as  she  sat  holding 
the  old  hand,  and  wondering  that  anything  so  frail  could  still 
keep  in  bond  a  spirit  weary  of  its  prison,  drowsiness  crept  over 
her  once  more,  all  the  sooner  for  the  monotonous  rhythm  of  the 
heavy  breath.  Consciousness  gave  place  to  a  state  of  mysterious 
discomfort,  complicated  with  intersecting  strings  and  a  grave 
sense  of  responsibility,  and  then  to  oblivion.  After  a  few  thou- 
sand years,  probably  minutes  on  the  clock,  a  jerk  woke  her. 

"Oh  dear!  I  was  asleep." 

"You  might  give  me  another  nip  of  the  champagne,  Eosey  dear. 
And  then  you  must  go  and  lie  down.  I  shall  be  all  right.  Is 
it  late?" 

"Not  very.  About  twelve.  I'll  look  at  my  watch."  She 
does  so,  and  it  is  past  one.  Then  the  invalid,  being  raised  up 
towards  his  champagne,  has  a  sudden  attack  of  coughing,  which 
brings  in  the  nurse  as  a  reserve.  Presently  he  is  reinstated  in 
semi-comfort,  half  a  tone  weaker,  but  with  something  to  say. 
And  so  little  voice  to  say  it  with!  Rosalind  puts  her  ear  close, 
and  repeats  what  she  catches. 

"Why  did  Major  Roper  come  back?  He  didn't,  dear.  He 
went  away  about  seven,  and  ha?  not  been  here  since." 

"He  was  in  the  room  just  this  minute."  The  voice  is  barely 
audible,  the  conviction  of  the  speaker  absolute.  He  is  wandering. 
The  nurse's  mind  decides,  in  an  innermost  recess,  that  it  won't 
be  very  long  now. 

Rosalind  looked  out  through  a  spot  she  had  rubbed  clean  on 
the  frozen  window-pane,  and  saw  that  it  was  bright  starlight. 
The  fog  had  gone.  That  boy — he  was  asleep  at  the  twopenny 
doss,  and  the  trousers  were  drying.  What  a  good  thing  that  he 
should  be  totally  insensitive  to  atmosphere,  as  no  doubt  he 
was. 

The  hardest  hours  for  the  watcher  by  a  sick-bed  are  those 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  275 

that  cannot  be  convinced  that  they  belong  to  the  previous  day. 
One  o'clock  may  be  coaxed  or  bribed  easily  enough  into  winking 
at  a  pretence  that  it  is  only  a  corollary  of  twelve;  two  o'clock 
protests  against  it  audibly,  and  every  quarter-chime  endorses 
its  claim  to  be  to-morrow;  three  o'clock  makes  short  work  of  an 
imposture  only  a  depraved  effrontery  can  endeavour  to  foist 
upon  it.  Rosalind  was  aware  of  her  unfitness  to  sit  up  all  night 
— all  this  next  night — but  nursed  the  pretext  that  it  had  not 
come,  and  that  it  was  still  to-day,  until  a  sense  of  the  morning 
chill,  and  something  in  the  way  the  sound  of  each  belated  cab 
confessed  to  its  own  scarcity,  convinced  her  of  the  uselessness  of 
further  effort.  Then  she  surrendered  the  point,  short  of  the 
stroke  of  three,  and  exchanged  posts  with  the  nurse,  who  prom- 
ised to  call  her  at  once  should  it  seem  necessary  to  do  so.  Sleep 
came  with  a  rush,  and  dreamless  oblivion.  Then,  immediately, 
the  hand  of  the  nurse  on  her  shoulder,  and  her  voice,  a  sudden 
shock  in  the  absolute  stillness: 

"I  thought  it  better  to  wake  you,  Mrs.  Nightingale.  I  am  so 
sorry.  .  .  ." 

"Oh  dear!  how  long  have  I  slept?"  Rosalind's  mind  leaped 
through  a  second  of  unconsciousness  of  where  she  is  and  what 
if s  all  about  to  a  state  of  intense  wakefulness.  "What  o'clock 
is  it?" 

"It's  half-past  six.  I  should  have  left  you  to  have  your  sleep 
out,  only  he  wanted  you.  .  .  .  Yes,  he  woke  up  and  asked  for 
you,  and  then  asked  again.  He's  hardly  coughed." 

"I'll  come."  Rosalind  tried  for  alacrity,  but  found  she  was 
quite  stiff.  The  fire  was  only  a  remnant  of  red  glow  that  col- 
lapsed feebly  as  the  nurse  touched  it  with  the  poker.  It  was  a 
case  for  a  couple  of  little  gluey  wheels,  and  a  good  contribution 
to  the  day's  fog,  already  in  course  of  formation,  with  every  grate 
in  London  panting  to  take  shares.  Rosalind  did  not  wait  to  see 
the  black  column  of  smoke  start  for  its  chimney-pot,  but  went 
straight  to  the  patient's  bedside. 

"Is  that  Rosey  ?  I  can't  see  very  well.  Come  and  sit  beside 
me.  I  want  you."  He  was  speaking  more  easily  than  before, 
so  his  hearer  thought.  Could  it  be  a  change  for  the  better? 
She  put  her  finger  on  the  pulse,  but  it  was  hard  to  find.  The 
fever  had  left  him  for  the  time  being,  but  its  work  was  done.  It 


276  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

was  wonderful,  though,  that  he  should  have  so  much  life  in  him 
for  speech. 

"What  is  it,  Major  dear?  .  .  .  Let's  get  the  pillow  right. 
.  .  .  There,  that's  better!  Yes,  dear;  what  is  it?" 

"I've  got  my  marching  orders,  Rosey.  I  shall  be  all  right. 
Shan't  be  sorry  .  .  .  when  it's  over.  .  .  .  Eosey  girl,  I  want 
you  to  do  something  for  me.  ...  Is  my  watch  there,  with  the 
keys?" 

"Yes,  dear;  the  two  little  keys." 

"The  little  one  opens  my  desk  .  .  .  with  the  brass  corners. 
.  .  .  Yes,  that  one.  .  .  .  Open  the  top  flap,  and  look  in  the 
little  left-hand  drawer.  Got  it?" 

"Yes;  you  want  the  letters  out?    There's  only  one  packet." 

"That's  the  lot.     Read  what's  written  on  them." 

"Only  'Emily,  1837.' " 

"Quite  right!  That  was  your  aunt,  you  know — your  father's 
sister.  Don't  cry,  darling.  Nothing  to  cry  about!  I'm  only 
an  old  chap.  There,  there!"  Rosalind  sat  down  again  by  the 
bed,  keeping  the  packet  of  letters  in  her  hand.  Presently  the 
old  man,  who  had  closed  his  eyes  as  though  dozing,  opened  them 
and  said:  "Have  you  put  them  on  the  fire?" 

"No.     Was  I  to?" 

"That  was  what  I  meant.  I  thought  I  said  so.  ...  Yes; 
pop  'em  on."  Rosalind  went  to  the  fireside  and  stood  hesitating, 
till  the  old  man  repeated  his  last  words;  then  threw  the  love- 
letters  of  sixty  years  ago  in  a  good  hot  place  in  the  burning  coal. 
A  flare,  and  they  were  white  ash  trying  to  escape  from  a  valley 
of  burning  rocks;  then  even  that  was  free  to  rise.  Maybe  the 
only  one  who  ever  read  them  would  be  soon — would  be  a  mere 
attenuated  ash,  at  least,  as  far  as  what  lay  on  that  bed  went,  so 
pale  and  evanescent  even  now. 

"A  fool  of  a  boy,  Rosey  dear,"  said  the  old  voice,  as  she  took 
her  place  by  the  bed  again.  "Just  a  fool  of  a  boy,  to  keep  them 
all  those  years.  And  she  married  to  another  fellow,  and  a  great- 
grandmother.  Ah,  well!  .  .  .  don't  you  cry  about  it,  Rosey.  .  .  . 
All  done  now!"  She  may  have  heard  him  wrong,  for  his  voice 
went  to  a  whisper.  She  wondered  at  the  way  the  cough  was 
sparing  him. 

Then  she  thought  he  was  falling  asleep  again;  but  presently 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  277 

he  spoke.  "I  shall  do  very  well  now.  .  .  .  Nothing  but  a  little 
rest  .  .  .  that's  all  I  want  now.  Only  there's  something  I 
wanted  to  say  about  .  .  .  about  .  .  ." 

"About  Sally?"  Eosalind  guessed  quickly,  and  certainly. 

"Ah  .  .  .  about  the  baby.  Your  baby,  Rosey.  .  .  .  That 
man  that  was  her  father  .  .  .  he's  on  my  mind.  .  .  ." 

"Oh  me,  forget  him,  dear — forget  him!  Leave  him  to  God!" 
Rosalind  repeated  a  phrase  used  twenty  years  ago  by  herself  in 
answer  to  the  old  soldier's  first  uncontrollable  outburst  of  anger 
against  the  man  who  had  made  her  his  victim.  His  voice  rose 
again  above  a  whisper  as  he  answered: 

"I  heard  you  say  so,  dear  child  .  .  .  then  .  .  .  that  time. 
You  were  right,  and  I  was  wrong.  But  what  I've  said — many  a 
time,  God  forgive  me! — that  I  prayed  he  was  in  hell.  I  would 
be  glad  now  to  think  I  had  not  said  it." 

"Don't  think  of  it.  Oh,  my  dear,  don't  think  of  it!  You 
never  meant  it.  .  .  ." 

"Ah,  but  I  did,  though;  and  would  again,  mind  you,  Rosey! 
Only — not  now!  Better  let  him  go,  for  Sallykin's  sake.  .  .  . 
The  child's  the  puzzle  of  it.  .  .  ." 

Rosalind  thought  she  saw  what  he  was  trying  to  say,  and  her- 
self tried  to  supplement  it.  "You  mean,  why  isn't  Sally  like 
him?" 

"Ah,  to  be  sure!  Like  father  like  son,  they  say.  His  son's  a 
chip  of  the  old  block.  But  then — he's  his  mother's  son,  too. 
Two  such! — and  then  see  what  comes  of  'em.  Sallykin's  your 
daughter  .  .  .  Rosey's  daughter.  Sallykin.  .  .  ."  He  seemed 
to  be  drowsing  off  from  mere  weakness;  but  he  had  something  to 
say,  and  his  mind  made  for  speech  and  found  it: 

"Yes,  Rosey;  it's  the  end  of  the  story.  Soon  off — I  shall  be! 
Not  very  long  now.  Wasn't  it  foggy?" 

"Yes,  dear;  it  was.     But  it's  clear  now.     It's  snowing." 

"Then  you  could  send  for  Jack  Roper.  Old  Jack! 
He  can  tell  me  something  I  want  to  know  ...  I  know  he 
can.  .  .  ." 

"But  it's  the  middle  of  the  night,  dear.  We  can't  send  for 
him  now.  Sally  shall  go  for  him  again  when  she  comes  in  the 
morning.  What  is  it  you  want  to  know?" 

"What  became  of  poor  Algernon  Palliser.  ...     I  know  Old 


278  ,     SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Jack  knows.  .  .  .  Something  he  heard.  ...  I  forget  things 
.  .  .  my  head's  not  good.  Ah,  Rosey  darling!  if  I'd  been  there 
in  the  first  of  it  ...  I  could  have  got  speech  of  him.  I  might 
have  .  .  .  might  have  .  .  ." 

As  the  old  man's  mind  wandered  back  to  the  terrible  time  it 
dragged  his  hearer's  with  it.  Rosalind  tried  to  bear  it  by  think- 
ing of  what  Sally  was  like  in  those  days,  crumpled,  violent, 
vociferous,  altogether  intransigeante.  But  it  was  only  a  moment's 
salve  to  a  reeling  of  the  reason  she  knew  must  come  if  this  went 
on.  If  he  slept  it  might  be  averted.  She  thought  he  was 
dropping  off,  but  he  roused  himself  again  to  say:  "What  became 
of  poor  Palliser — your  husband  ?" 

Then  Rosalind,  whose  head  was  swimming,  let  the  fact  slip 
from  her  that  the  dying  man  had  never  seen  or  known  her 
husband  in  the  old  days;  only  he  had  always  spoken  of  him  as 
one  to  be  pitied,  not  blamed,  even  as  she  herself  thought  of  him. 
Incautiously  she  now  said,  "Poor  Gerry!"  forgetting  that  Colonel 
Lund  had  never  known  him  by  that  name,  or  so  slightly  that  it 
did  not  connect  itself.  Yet  his  mind  was  marvellously  clear, 
too;  for  he  immediately  replied:  "I  did  not  mean  Fenwick.  I 
meant  your  first  husband.  Poor  boy!  poor  fellow!  What  be- 
came of  him?" 

"His  name  was  Algernon,  too,"  was  all  the  answer  she  could 
think  of.  It  was  a  sort  of  forlorn  hope  in  nettle-grasping.  Then 
she  saw  it  had  little  meaning  in  it  for  her  listener.  His  voice 
went  on,  almost  whispering: 

"Many  a  time  I've  thought  ...  if  we  could  have  found  the 
poor  boy  .  .  .  and  shown  him  Sally  ...  he  might  have  .  .  . 
might  have  .  .  ." 

Rosalind  could  bear  it  no  longer.  Whoever  reads  this  story 
carelessly  may  see  little  excuse  for  her  that  she  should  lose  her 
head  at  the  bedside  of  a  dying  man.  It  was  really  no  matter 
for  surprise  that  she  should  do  so.  Consider  the  perpetual  ten- 
sion of  her  life,  the  broken  insufficient  sleep  of  the  last  two  days, 
the  shock  of  "Old  Jack's"  sudden  death  a  few  hours  since! 
Small  blame  to  her,  to  our  thinking,  if  she  did  give  way!  To 
some  it  may  even  seem,  as  to  us,  that  the  course  she  took  was 
best  in  the  end.  And,  indeed,  her  self-control  stood  by  her  to 
the  last;  it  was  a  retreat  in  perfect  order,  not  a  flight.  Nor  did 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  279 

she,  perhaps,  fully  measure  how  near  hei;  old  friend  was  to  his 
end,  or  release — a  better  name,  perhaps. 

"Major  dear,  I  have  something  I  must  tell  you."  The  old 
eyelids  opened,  and  his  eyes  turned  to  her,  though  he  remained 
motionless — quite  as  one  who  caught  the  appeal  in  the  tension 
of  her  voice  and  guessed  its  meaning. 

"Rosey  darling — yes;  tell  me  now."  His  voice  tried  to  rise 
above  a  whisper;  an  effort  seemed  to  be  in  it  to  say:  "Don't  keep 
anything  back  on  my  account." 

"So  I  will,  dear.  Shut  your  eyes  and  lie  quiet  and  listen.  I 
want  to  tell  you  that  I  know  that  my  first  husband  is  not 
dead.  .  .  .  Yes,  dear;  don't  try  to  speak.  You'll  see  when  I 
tell  you.  .  .  .  Algernon  Palliser  is  not  dead,  though  we  thought 
he  must  be.  He  went  away  from  Lahore  after  the  proceedings, 
and  he  did  go  to  Australia,  no  doubt,  as  we  heard  at  the  time; 
but  after  that  he  went  to  America,  and  was  there  till  two  years 
ago  .  .  .  and  then  he  came  to  England."  The  old  man  tried 
to  speak,  but  this  time  his  voice  failed,  and  Rosalind  thought  it 
best  to  go  straight  on.  "He  came  to  England,  dear,  and  met  with 
a  bad  accident,  and  lost  his  memory.  .  .  ." 

"What!"  The  word  came  so  suddenly  and  clearly  that 
it  gave  her  new  courage  to  go  on.  She  must  tell  it  all  now, 
and  she  felt  sure  he  was  hearing  and  understanding  all  she 
said. 

"Yes,  dear;  it's  all  true.  Let  me  tell  it  all.  He  lost  his 
memory  completely,  so  that  he  did  not  know  his  own  name.  .  .  ." 

"My  God!" 

"Did  not  know  his  own  name,  dear — did  not  know  his  own 
name — did  not  know  the  face  of  the  wife  he  lost  twenty  years 
ago — all,  all  a  blank!  .  .  .  Yes,  yes;  it  was  he  himself,  and  I 
took  him  and  kept  him,  and  I  have  him  now  .  .  .  and  oh,  my 
dear,  my  dear,  he  does  not  know  it — knows  nothing!  He  does 
not  know  who  I  am,  nor  who  he  was,  nor  that  Sally  is  the  baby; 
but  he  loves  her  dearly,  as  he  never  could  have  loved  her  if  ... 
if  .  .  ." 

She  could  say  no  more.  The  torrent  of  tears  that  was  the 
first  actual  relief  to  the  weight  upon  her  heart  of  two  years  of 
secrecy  grew  and  grew  till  speech  was  overwhelmed.  But  she 
knew  that  her  story,  however  scantily  told,  had  reached  her 


280  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

listener's  mind,  though  she  could  not  have  said  precisely  at  what 
moment  he  came  to  know  it.  The  tone  of  his  exclamation,  "My 
God!"  perhaps  had  made  her  take  his  knowledge  for  granted. 
Of  one  thing,  however,  she  felt  certain — that  details  were  need- 
less, would  add  nothing  to  the  main  fact,  which  she  was  quite 
convinced  her  old  friend  had  grasped  with  a  mind  still  capable 
of  holding  it,  although  it  might  be  in  death.  Even  so  one  tells 
a  child  the  outcome  only  of  what  one  tells  in  full  to  older  ears. 
Then  quick  on  the  heels  of  the  relief  of  sharing  her  burden  with 
another  followed  the  thought  of  how  soon  the  sympathy  she  had 
gained  must  be  lost,  buried — so  runs  the  code  of  current  speech — 
in  her  old  friend's  grave.  All  her  heart  poured  out  in  tears  on 
the  hand  that  could  still  close  fitfully  upon  her  own  as  she  knelt 
by  the  bed  on  which  he  would  so  soon  lie  dying. 

Presently  his  voice  came  again — a  faint  whisper  she  could  just 
catch:  "Tell  it  me  again,  Eosey  .  .  .  what  you  told  me  just 
now  .  .  .  just  now."  And  she  felt  his  cold  hand  close  on  hers 
as  he  spoke.  Then  she  repeated  what  she  had  said  before,  adding 
only:  "But  he  may  never  come  to  know  his  own  story,  and  Sally 
must  not  know  it."  The  old  whisper  came  back,  and  she  caught 
'  the  words:  "Then  it  is  true!  My  God!" 

She  remained  kneeling  motionless  beside  him.  His  breath, 
weak  and  intermittent,  but  seeming  more  free  than  when  she 
left  him  four  hours  since,  was  less  audible  than  the  heavy  sleep 
of  the  overtaxed  nurse  in  the  next  room,  heard  through  the  un- 
closed door.  The  familiar  early  noises  of  the  street,  the  life  out- 
side that  cares  so  little  for  the  death  within,  the  daily  bread  and 
daily  milk  that  wake  us  too  soon  in  the  morning,  the  cynical 
interchanges  of  cheerful  early  risers  about  the  comfort  of  the 
weather — all  grew  and  gathered  towards  the  coming  day.  But 
the  old  Colonel  heard  none  of  them.  What  thought  he  still  had 
could  say  to  him  that  this  was  good  and  that  was  good,  hard 
though  it  might  be  to  hold  it  in  mind.  But  one  bright  golden 
thread  ran  clear  through  all  the  tangled  skeins — he  would  leave 
Rosey  happy  at  last,  for  all  the  bitterness  her  cup  of  life  had 
held  before. 

The  nurse  had  slept  profoundly,  but  she  was  one  of  those 
fortunate  people  who  can  do  so  at  will,  and  then  wake  up  at  an 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  281 

appointed  time,  as  many  great  soldiers  have  been  able  to  do. 
As  the  clock  struck  eight  she  sat  up  in  the  chair  she  had  been 
sleeping  in  and  listened  a  moment.  No  sound  came  from  the 
next  room.  She  rose  and  pushed  the  door  open  cautiously  and 
looked  in.  Mrs.  Fenwick  was  still  kneeling  by  the  bed,  her 
face  hidden,  still  holding  the  old  man's  hand.  The  nurse 
thought  surely  the  still  white  face  she  saw  in  the  intermittent 
gleams  of  a  lamp-flame  flickering  out  was  the  face  of  a  dead 
man.  Need  she  rouse  or  disturb  the  watcher  by  his  side?  Not 
yet,  certainly.  She  pulled  the  door  very  gently  back,  not  clos- 
ing it. 

A  sound  came  of  footsteps  on  the  stairs — footsteps  without 
voices.  It  was  Fenwick  and  Sally,  who  had  passed  through  the 
street  door,  open  for  a  negotiation  for  removal  of  the  snow — for 
the  last  two  hours  had  made  a  white  world  outside.  Sally  was 
a  stairflight  in  the  rear.  She  had  paused  for  a  word  with  the 
boy  Chancellorship,  who  was  a  candidate  for  snow-removal.  He 
seemed  relieved  by  the  snow.  It  was  a  tidy  lot  better  morning 
than  last  night,  missis.  He  had  breakfasted — yes — off  of  corfy, 
and  paid  for  it,  and  buttered  'arf  slices  and  no  stintin',  for  two- 
pence. Sally  had  a  fellow-feeling  for  this  boy's  optimism.  But 
he  had  something  on  his  mind,  for  when  Sally  asked  him  if 
Major  Koper  had  got  home  safe  last  night,  his  cheerfulness 
clouded  over,  and  he  said  first,  "Couldn't  say,  missis;"  and  then, 
"He's  been  got  home,  you  may  place  your  dependence  on  that;" 
adding,  inexplicably  to  Sally,  "He  won't  care  about  this  weather; 
it  won't  be  no  odds!"  She  couldn't  wait  to  find  out  his  meaning, 
but  told  him  he  might  go  on  clearing  away  the  snow,  and  when 
Mrs.  Kindred  came  he  was  to  say  Miss  Eosalind  Nightingale  told 
him  he  might.  She  said  she  would  be  answerable,  and  then  ran 
to  catch  up  Fenwick. 

The  nurse  came  out  to  meet  them  on  the  landing,  and  in 
answer  to  Fenwick's  half-inquiry  or  look  of  inquiry — Sally  did 
not  gather  which — said:  "Yes — at  least,  I  think  so — just  now." 
Sally  made  up  her  mind  it  was  death.  But  it  was  not,  quite; 
for  as  the  nurse,  preceding  them,  pushed  the  door  of  the  sick- 
room gently  open,  the  voice  of  the  man  she  believed  dead  came 
out  almost  strong  and  clear  in  the  silence:  "Evil  has  turned  to 
good.  God  be  praised!" 


282  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

But  they  were  the  last  words  Colonel  Lund  spoke.  He  died 
so  quietly  that  the  exact  moment  of  dissolution  was  not  dis- 
tinguishable. Fenwick  and  Sally  found  Eosalind  so  overstrained 
with  grief  and  watching  that  they  asked  for  no  explanation  of 
the  words.  Indeed,  they  may  not  have  ascribed  any  special  mean- 
ing to  them. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

ABOUT  SIX  MONTHS,  AND  HOW  A  CABMAN  SAW  A  GHOST.  OF  SALLY'S 
AND  THE  DOCTOR'S  "MODUS  VIVENDI,"  AND  THE  SHOOSMITH  FAMILY. 
HOW  SALLY  MADE  TEA  FOR  BUDDHA,  AND  HOW  BUDDHA  FORESAW  A 
STEPDAUGHTER.  DELIRIUM  TREMENS 

IT  may  make  this  story  easier  to  read  at  this  point  if  we  tell  our 
reader  that  this  twenty-fifth  chapter  contains  little  of  vital  im- 
port— is,  in  fact,  only  a  passing  reference  to  one  or  two  by- 
incidents  that  came  about  in  the  half-year  that  followed.  He 
cannot  complain  that  they  are  superfluous  if  we  give  him  fair 
warning  of  their  triviality,  and  enable  him  to  skip  them  without 
remorse.  But  they  register,  to  our  thinking,  what  little  progress 
events  made  in  six  very  nice  months — a  period  Time  may  be  said 
to  have  skipped.  And  whoso  will  may  follow  his  example,  and 
lose  but  little  in  the  doing  of  it. 

Very  nice  months  they  were — only  one  cloud  worth  mention 
in  the  blue;  only  one  phrase  in  a  minor  key.  The  old  familiar 
figure  of  "the  Major" — intermittent,  certainly,  but  none  the  less 
invariable;  making  the  house  his  own,  or  letting  it  appropriate 
him,  hard  to  say  which — was  no  longer  to  bu  seen;  but  the  old 
sword  had  been  hung  in  a  place  of  honour  near  a  portrait  of  Paul 
Nightingale,  Mrs.  Fenwick's  stepfather — its  old  owner's  school- 
friend  of  seventy  years  ago.  At  her  death  it  was  to  be  offered 
to  the  school;  no  surviving  relative  was  named  in  the  will,  if  any 
existed.  Everything  was  left  unconditionally  "to  my  dear  daugh- 
ter by  adoption,  Rosalind  Nightingale." 

Some  redistributions  of  furniture  were  involved  in  the  importa- 
tion of  the  movables  from  the  two  rooms  in  Ball  Street  The 
black  cabinet,  or  cellaret,  with  the  eagle-talons,  found  a  place  in 
the  dining-room  in  the  basement  into  which  Fenwick — only  it 
seems  so  odd  to  go  back  to  it  now — was  brought  on  the  afternoon 
of  his  electrocution.  Sally  always  thought  of  this  cabinet  as 
"Major  Roper's  cabinet,"  because  she  got  the  whiskey  from  it  for 

283 


284  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

him  before  he  went  off  in  the  fog.  If  only  she  had  made  him 
drunk  that  evening!  Who  knows  but  it  might  have  enabled  him 
to  fight  against  that  terrible  heart-failure  that  was  not  the  result 
of  atmospheric  conditions.  She  never  looked  at  this  cabinet  but 
the  thought  passed  through  her  mind. 

Her  mother  certainly  told  her  nothing  at  this  time  about  her 
last  conversation  with  the  Colonel,  or  almost  nothing.  Certainly 
she  mentioned  more  than  once  what  she  thought  a  curious  cir- 
cumstance— that  the  invalid,  who  was  utterly  ignorant  of  Old 
Jack's  death,  had  persisted  so  strongly  that  he  was  present  in 
the  room  when  he  must  have  been  dead  some  hours.  Every  one 
of  us  has  his  little  bit  of  Psychical  Besearch,  which  he  demands 
respect  for  from  others,  whose  own  cherished  private  instances 
he  dismisses  without  investigation.  This  example  became  Mrs. 
Fenwick's;  who,  to  be  just,  had  not  set  herself  up  with  one  pre- 
viously, in  spite  of  the  temptation  the  Anglo-Indian  is  always 
under  to  espouse  Mahatmas  and  buried  Faquirs  and  the  like. 
There  seemed  a  good  prospect  that  it  would  become  an  article  of 
faith  with  her;  her  first  verdict — that  it  was  an  hallucination — 
having  been  undermined  by  a  certain  contradictiousness,  pro- 
duced in  her  by  an  undeserved  discredit  poured  on  it  by  pre- 
tenders to  a  superior  ghost-insight ;  who,  after  all,  tried  to  utilise 
it  afterward  as  a  peg  to  hang  their  own  particular  ghosts  on. 
Which  wasn't  researching  fair. 

Sally  was  no  better  than  the  rest  of  them;  if  anything,  she 
was  a  little  worse.  And  Eosalind  was  far  from  sure  that  her 
husband  wouldn't  have  been  much  more  reasonable  if  he  hadn't 
had  Sally  there  to  encourage  him.  As  it  was,  the  league  became, 
pro  hac  vice,  a  league  of  Incredulity,  a  syndicate  of  Materialists. 
Eosalind  got  no  quarter  for  the  half-belief  she  had  in  what  the 
old  Colonel  had  said  on  his  death-bed.  Her  report  of  his  evident 
earnestness  and  the  self-possession  of  his  voice  carried  no  weight; 
failing  powers,  delirium,  effects  of  opiates,  and  ten  degrees  above 
normal  had  it  all  their  own  way.  Besides,  her  superstition  was 
weak-kneed.  It  only  went  the  length  of  suggesting  that  it  really 
was  very  curious  when  you  came  to  think  of  it,  and  she  couldn't 
make  it  out. 

That  the  incident  received  such  very  superficial  recognition 
must  be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  Krakatoa  Villa  was  not 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  285 

a  villa  of  the  speculative-thinker  class.  We  have  known  such 
villas  elsewhere,  but  we  are  bound  to  say  we  have  known  none 
where  speculative  thought  has  tackled  the  troublesome  questions 
of  death-bed  appearances,  haunted  houses,  et  id  genus  omne, 
with  the  result  of  coming  to  any  but  very  speculative  conclu- 
sions. The  male  head  of  this  household  may  have  felt  that  he 
himself,  as  a  problem  for  the  Psychical  Researcher,  was  ill-fitted 
to  discuss  the  subject.  He  certainly  shied  off  expressing  any 
decided  opinions. 

"What  do  you  really  think  about  ghosts?"  said  his  wife  to  him 
one  day,  when  Sally  wasn't  there  to  come  in  with  her  chaff. 

"Ghosts  belong  in  titled  families.  Middle-class  ghosts  are  a 
poor  lot.  Those  in  the  army  and  navy  cut  the  best  figure,  on  the 
whole — Junior  United  Service  ghosts.  .  .  ." 

"Gerry,  be  serious,  or  I'll  have  a  divorce!"  This  was  a  power- 
ful grip  on  a  stinging-nettle.  Rosalind  felt  braced  by  the  effort 
"Did  you  ever  see  a  ghost,  old  man?" 

"Not  in  the  present  era,  sweetheart.  I  can't  say  about  B.C." 
He  used  to  speak  of  his  life  in  this  way,  but  his  wife  always  felt 
sorry  when  he  alluded  to  it.  It  seldom  happened.  "No,  I  have 
never  seen  one  to  my  knowledge.  I've  been  seen  as  a  ghost, 
though,  which  is  very  unpleasant,  I  assure  you." 

Rosalind's  mind  went  back  to  the  fat  Baron  at  Sonnenberg. 
She  supposed  this  to  be  another  case  of  the  same  sort.  "When 
was  that?"  she  said. 

"Monday.  I  took  a  hansom  from  Cornhill  to  our  bonded 
warehouse.  It's  under  a  mile,  and  I  asked  the  driver  to  change 
half-a-crown;  I  hadn't  a  shilling.  He  got  out  a  handful  of  silver, 
and  when  he  had  picked  out  the  two  shillings  and  sixpence  he 
looked  at  me  for  the  first  time,  and  started  and  stared  as  if  I  was 
a  ghost  in  good  earnest." 

"Oh,  Gerry,  he  must  have  seen  you  before — before  it  happened!" 
Remember  that  this  was,  in  the  spirit  of  it,  a  fib,  seeing  that  the 
tone  of  voice  was  that  of  welcome  to  a  possible  revelation.  To 
our  thinking,  the  more  honour  to  her  who  spoke  it,  considering 
the  motives.  Gerry  continued: 

"So  I  thought  at  first.  But  listen  to  what  followed.  As  soon 
as  his  surprise,  whatever  caused  it,  had  toned  down  to  mere 
recognition  point,  he  spoke  with  equanimity.  'I've  driven  you 


286  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

afore  now,  mister,'  said  he.  'You  won't  call  me  to  mind. 
Parties  don't,  not  when  fares;  when  drivers,  quite  otherwise. 
I'm  by  way  of  taking  notice  myself.  You'll  excuse  me  T  Then 
he  said,  'War-r-r-p,'  to  the  horse,  who  was  trying  to  eat  himself 
and  dig  the  road  up.  When  they  were  friends  again,  I  asked, 
Where  had  he  seen  me?  Might  I  happen  to  call  to  mind  Liver- 
more's  Rents,  and  that  turn-up? — that  was  his  reply.  I  said  I 
mightn't;  or  didn't,  at  any  rate.  I  had  never  been  near  Liver- 
more's  Eents,  nor  any  one  else's  rents,  that  I  could  recall  the 
name  of.  'Try  again,  guv'nor,'  said  he.  'You'll  recall  if  you 
try  hard  enough.  He  recollects  it,  I'll  go  bail.  My  Goard! 
you  did  let  him  have  it!'  Was  it  a  fight?  I  asked.  Well,  do 
you  know,  darling,  that  cabby  addressed  me  seriously;  took  me 
to  task  for  want  of  candour.  'That  ain't  worthy  of  a  guv'nor 
like  you,'  he  said.  'Why  make  any  concealments?  Why  not 
treat  me  open?'  I  gave  him  my  most  solemn  honour  that  I  was 
utterly  at  a  loss  to  guess  what  he  was  talking  about,  on  which 
he  put  me  through  a  sort  of  retrospective  catechism,  broken  by 
reminders  to  the  horse.  'You  don't  rec'lect  goin'  easy  over  the 
bridge  for  to  see  the  shipping?  Nor  yet  the  little  narrer  court 
right-hand  side  of  the  road,  with  an  iron  post  under  an  arch  and 
parties  hollerin'  murder  at  the  far  end?  Nor  yet  the  way  you 
held  him  in  hand  and  played  him?  Nor  yet  what  you  sampled 
him  out  at  the  finish?  My  Goard!'  He  slapped  the  top  of  the 
cab  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy.  'Never  saw  a  neater  thing  in  my  life. 
No  unnecessary  violence,  no  agitation!  And  him  carried  off  the 
ground  as  good  as  dead!  Ah!  I  made  inquiry  after,  and  that  was 
so.'  I  then  said  it  must  have  been  some  one  else  very  like  me, 
and  held  out  my  half-crown.  He  slipped  back  his  change  into 
his  own  pocket,  and  when  he  had  buttoned  it  over  ostentatiously 
addressed  me  again  with  what  seemed  a  last  appeal.  'I  take  it, 
guv'nor,'  said  he,  'you  may  have  such  a  powerful  list  of  fighting 
fixtures  in  the  week  that  you  don't  easy  recollect  one  out  from 
the  other.  But  now,  do,  you,  mean  to  say  your  memory  don't 
serve  you  in  this? — I  drove  you  over  to  Bishopsgate,  'cross  Lon- 
don Bridge.  Very  well!  Then  you  bought  a  hat — white 
Panama — and  took  change,  seein'  your  own  was  lost.  And  you 
was  going  to  pay  me,  and  I  drove  off,  refusin'  to  accept  a  farden 
under  the  circumstances.  Don't  you  rec'lect  that?'  I  said  I 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  287 

didn't.  'Well,  I  did,'  said  he.  'And,  with  your  leave,  I'll  do 
the  same  thing  now.  I'll  drive  you  most  anywhere  you'd  like  to 
name  in  reason,  but  I  won't  take  a  farden.'  And,  do  you  know, 
he  was  off  before  my  surprise  allowed  me  to  say  a  word." 

"Now,  Gerry,  was  it  that  made  you  so  glum  on  Monday  when 
you  came  back?  I  recollect  quite  well.  So  would  Sally." 

"Oh  no;  it  was  uncomfortable  at  first,  but  I  soon  forgot  all 
about  it.  I  recollect  what  it  was  put  me  in  the  dumps  quite  well. 
It  was  a  long  time  after  the  cabby." 

"What  was  it?" 

"Well,  it  was  as  I  walked  to  the  station.  I  went  a  little  way 
round,  and  passed  through  an  anonymous  sort  of  a  churchyard. 
I  saw  a  box  in  a  wall  with  'Contributions'  on  it,  and  remembering 
that  I  really  had  no  right  to  the  cabby's  shilling  or  eighteenpence, 
I  dropped  a  florin  in.  And  then,  Rosey  dear,  I  had  the  most 
horrible  recurrence  I've  had  for  a  long  time — something  about 
the  same  place  and  the  same  box,  and  some  one  else  putting  three 
shillings  in  it.  And  it  was  all  mixed  up  with  a  bottle  of  cham- 
pagne and  a  bank.  I  can't  explain  why  these  things  are  so  pain- 
ful, but  they  are.  You  know,  Rosey!" 

"I  know,  dear."  His  wife's  knowledge  seemed  to  make  her 
quite  silent  and  absent.  She  may  have  seen  that  the  recovery 
of  this  cabman  would  supply  a  clue  to  her  husband's  story.  Had 
he  taken  the  number  of  the  cab?  No,  he  hadn't.  Very  stupid 
of  him!  But  he  had  no  pencil,  or  he  could  have  written  it  on  his 
ehirt-sleeve.  He  couldn't  trust  his  memory.  Rosalind  didn't 
feel  very  sorry  the  clue  was  lost.  As  for  him,  did  he,  we  wonder, 
really  exert  himself  to  remember  the  cab's  number? 

But  when  the  story  was  told  afterwards  to  Sally,  the  moment 
the  Panama  hat  came  on  the  tapis,  she  struck  in  with,  "Jeremiah! 
you  know  quite  well  you  had  a  Panama  hat  on  the  day  you  were 
electrocuted.  And,  what's  more,  it  was  brand  new!  And,  whaf  s 
more,  if  s  outside  in  the  hall!" 

It  was  brought  in,  and  produced  a  spurious  sense  of  being 
detectives  on  the  way  to  a  discovery.  But  nothing  came  of  it. 

All  through  the  discussion  of  this  odd  cab-incident  the  fact 
that  Fenwick  "would  have  written  down  the  cab-driver's  number 
on  his  shirt-sleeve,"  was  on  the  watch  for  a  recollection  by  one 
of  the  three  that  a  something  had  been  found  written  on  the  shirt- 


288  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

cuff  Fenwick  was  electrocuted  in.  The  ill-starred  shrewdness  of 
Scotland  Yard,  by  detecting  a  mere  date  in  that  something,  had 
quite  thrown  it  out  of  gear  as  an  item  of  evidence.  By  the  way, 
did  no  one  ever  ask  why  should  any  man,  being  of  sound  mind, 
write  the  current  date  on  his  shirt-sleeve?  It  really  is  a  thing 
that  can  look  after  its  own  interests  for  twenty-four  hours.  The 
fact  is  that,  no  sooner  do  coincidences  come  into  court,  than  sane 
investigation  flies  out  at  the  skylight. 

There  was  much  discussion  of  this  incident,  you  may  be  sure; 
but  that  is  all  we  need  to  know  about  it. 

Our  other  chance  gleanings  of  the  half-year  are  in  quite  another 
part  of  the  field.  They  relate  to  Sally  and  Dr.  Vereker's  rela- 
tion to  one  another.  If  this  relation  had  anything  lover-like  in 
it,  they  certainly  were  not  taking  Europe  into  their  confidence 
on  the  subject.  Whether  their  attitude  was  a  spontaneous  ex- 
pression of  respectful  indifference,  or  a  parti-pris  to  mislead  and 
hoodwink  her,  of  course  Europe  couldn't  tell.  All  that  that 
continent,  or  the  subdivision  of  it  known  as  Shepherd's  Bush, 
could  see  was  a  parade  of  callousness  and  studied  civility  on  the 
part  of  both.  The  only  circumstance  that  impaired  its  integrity 
or  made  the  bystander  doubt  the  good  faith  of  its  performers  was 
the  fact  that  one  of  them  was  a  girl,  and  an  attractive  one — so 
attractive  that  elderly  ladies  jumped  meanly  at  the  supposed 
privileges  of  their  age  and  sex,  and  kissed  her  a  great  deal  more 
than  was  at  all  fair  or  honourable. 

The  ostentatious  exclusion  of  Cupid  from  the  relationship  of 
these  two  demanded  a  certain  mechanism.  Every  meeting  had 
to  be  accounted  for,  or  there  was  no  knowing  what  match-making 
busybodies  wouldn't  say;  or,  rather,  what  they  would  say  would 
be  easily  guessable  by  the  lowest  human  insight.  Not  that  either 
of  them  ever  mentioned  precaution  to  the  other;  all  its  advantages 
would  have  vanished  with  open  acknowledgment  of  its  necessity. 
These  arrangements  were  instinctive  on  the  part  of  both,  and  each 
credited  the  other  with  a  mole-like  blindness  to  their  existence. 

For  instance,  each  was  graciously  pleased  to  believe — or,  at 
least,  to  believe  that  the  other  believed — in  a  certain  institution 
that  called  for  a  vast  amount  of  checking  of  totals,  comparisons 
of  counterfoils,  inspection  of  certificates,  verification  of  data — 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  289 

everything,  in  short,  of  which  an  institute  is  capable  that  could 
make  incessant  correspondence  necessary  and  frequent  personal 
interviews  advisable.  It  could  boast  of  Heaven  knows  how  many 
titled  Patrons  and  Patronesses,  Committees  and  Sub-committees, 
Eeferees  and  Auditors.  No  doubt  the  mere  mention  of  such  an 
institution  was  enough  to  render  gossip  speechless  about  any 
single  lady  and  gentleman  whom  it  accidentally  made  known  one 
to  another.  Its  firm  of  Solicitors  alone,  with  a  line  all  to  itself 
in  its  prospectuses,  was  enough  to  put  a  host  of  Loves  to  flight. 

On  which  account  Ann,  at  Krakatoa  Villa,  when  she  an- 
nounced, "A  person  for  you,  Miss  Sally,"  was  able  to  add,  "from 
Dr.  Vereker,  I  think,  miss,"  without  the  faintest  shade  of  humor- 
ous reserve,  as  of  one  who  sees,  and  does  not  need  to  be  told. 

And  when  Sally  had  interviewed  a  hopeless  and  lopsided 
female,  who  appeared  to  be  precariously  held  together  by  pins,  and 
to  have  an  almost  superhuman  power  of  evading  practical  issues, 
she  (fortified  by  this  institution)  was  able  to  return  to  the  draw- 
ing-room and  say,  without  a  particle  of  shame,  that  she  supposed 
she  should  have  to  go  and  see  Old  Prosy  about  Mrs.  Shoosmith 
to-morrow  afternoon.  And  when  she  called  at  the  doctor's  at 
teatime — because  that  didn't  take  him  from  his  patients,  as 
he  made  a  point  of  his  tea,  because  of  his  mother,  if  it  was  only 
ten  minutes — both  he  and  she  believed  religiously  in  Mrs.  Shoo- 
smith, and  Dr.  Vereker  filled  out  her  form  (we  believe  we  have 
the  phrase  right)  with  the  most  business-like  gravity  at  the  little 
table  where  he  wrote  his  letters. 

Mrs.  Shoosmith's  form  called  for  filling  out  in  more  senses  than 
one.  The  doctor's  mother's  form  would  not  have  borne  anything 
further  in  that  direction;  except,  indeed,  she  had  been  provided 
with  hooks  to  go  over  her  chair  back,  and  keep  her  from  rolling 
along  the  floor,  as  a  sphere  might  if  asked  to  sit  down. 

A  suggestion  of  the  exceptional  character  of  all  visits  from 
Sally  to  Dr.  Vereker,  and  vice-versa,  was  fostered  by  the  domes- 
tics at  his  house  as  well  as  at  Krakatoa  Villa.  The  maid  Crad- 
dock,  who  responded  to  Sally's  knock  on  this  Shoosmith  occasion, 
threw  doubt  on  the  possibility  of  the  doctor  ever  being  visible 
again,  and  kept  the  door  mentally  on  the  jar  while  she  spoke 
through  a  moral  gap  an  inch  wide.  Of  course,  that  is  only  our 
nonsense.  Sally  was  really  in  the  house  when  Craddock 


290  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

heroically,  as  a  forlorn  hope  in  a  lost  cause,  offered  to  "go  and 
see";  and  going,  said,  "Miss  Nightingale;  and  is  Dr.  Vereker 
expected  in  to  tea?"  without  varnish  of  style,  or  redundance  of 
wording.  But  Sally  lent  herself  to  this  insincere  performance, 
and  remained  in  the  hall  until  she  was  called  on  to  decide  whether 
she  would  mind  coming  in  and  waiting,  and  Dr.  Vereker  would 
perhaps  be  back  in  a  few  minutes.  All  this  was  part  of  the  sys- 
tem of  insincerity  we  have  hinted  at. 

So  was  the  tenor  of  Sally's  remarks,  while  she  waited  the  few 
minutes,  to  the  effect  that  it  was  a  burning  shame  that  she  should 
take  up  Mrs.  Vereker's  time,  a  crying  scandal  that  she  should 
interrupt  her  knitting,  and  a  matter  of  penitential  reflection  that 
she  hadn't  written  instead  of  coming,  which  would  have  done 
just  as  well.  To  which  Mrs.  Vereker,  with  a  certain  parade  of 
pretended  insincerity  (to  make  the  real  article  underneath  seem 
bona  fides),  replied  with  mock-incredible  statements  about  the 
pleasure  she  always  had  in  seeing  Sally,  and  the  rare  good  fortune 
which  had  prompted  a  visit  at  this  time,  when,  in  addition  to 
being  unable  to  knit,  owing  to  her  eyes,  she  had  been  absorbed  in 
longing  for  news  of  a  current  event  that  Sally  was  sure  to  know 
about.  She  particularised  it. 

"Oh,  it  isn't  true,  Mrs.  Vereker!  You  don't  mean  to  say  you 
believed  that  nonsense?  The  idea!  Tishy — just  fancy!"  Goody 
Vereker  (the  name  Sally  thought  of  her  by)  couldn't  shake  her 
head,  the  fulness  at  the  neck  forbade  it;  but  she  moved  it  cosily 
from  side  to  side  continuously,  much  as  a  practicable  image  of 
Buddha  might  have  done. 

"My  child,  I've  quite  given  up  believing  and  disbelieving 
things.  I  wait  to  be  told,  and  then  I  ask  if  it's  true.  Now  you've 
told  me.  It  isn't  true,  and  that  settles  the  matter." 

"But  whoever  could  tell  you  such  nonsense,  Mrs.  Vereker?" 

"A  little  bird,  my  dear."  The  image  of  Buddha  left  off  the 
movement  of  incredulity,  and  began  a  very  gentle,  slow  nod. 
"A  little  bird  tells  me  these  things — all  sorts  of  things.  But  now 
I  know  this  one's  untrue  I  should  never  dream  of  believing  it. 
Not  for  one  moment." 

Sally  felt  inclined  to  pinch,  bite,  or  otherwise  maltreat  the 
speaker,  so  very  worthless  did  her  offer  of  optional  disbelief  seem, 
and,  indeed,  so  very  offensive.  But  her  inclination  only  went 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  291 

the  length  of  wondering  how  she  could  get  at  a  vulnerable  point 
through  so  much  fat. 

"Tishy  quarrels  with  her  mother,  I  know,""  said  she.  "But 
as  to  her  doing  anything  like  that!  Besides,  she  never  told  me. 
Besides,  I  should  have  been  asked  to  the  wedding.  Besides," 
etcetera. 

For,  you  see,  what  this  elderly  lady  had  asked  the  truth  about 
was,  had  or  had  not  Lsetitia  Wilson  and  Julius  Bradshaw  been 
privately  married  six  months  ago?  Probably,  during  aeons  and 
epochs  of  knitting,  she  had  dreamed  that  some  one  had  told 
her  this.  Or,  even  more  probably,  she  had  invented  it  on  the 
spot,  to  see  what  change  she  could  get  out  of  Sally.  She  knew 
that  Sally,  prudently  exasperated,  would  give  tongue;  whereas 
conciliatory,  cosy  inquisition — the  right  way  to  approach  the 
elderly  gossip — would  only  make  her  reticent.  Now  it  was  only 
necessary  to  knit,  and  Sally  would  be  sure  to  develop  the  subject 
The  line  she  appeared  to  take  was  that  it  was  a  horrible  shame 
of  people  to  say  such  things,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  it  was  only 
yesterday  that  Tishy  had  quite  settled  that  rash  matrimony  in 
defiance  of  her  parents  would  not  only  be  inexcusable  but  wrong. 
Sally  laid  a  fiery  emphasis  on  the  only-ness  of  yesterday,  and 
seemed  to  imply  that,  had  it  been  a  week  ago,  there  would  have 
been  much  more  plausibility  in  the  story  of  this  secret  nuptial  of 
six  months  back. 

"Besides,"  she  went  on,  accumulating  items  of  refutation, 
"Julius  has  only  his  salary,  and  Tishy  has  nothing — though,  of 
course,  she  could  teach.  Besides,  Julius  has  his  mother  and  sister, 
and  they  have  only  a  hundred  and  fifty  a  year.  It  does  as  long 
as  they  all  live  together.  But  it  wouldn't  do  if  Julius  married." 
On  which  the  old  Goody  (Sally  told  her  mother  after)  embarked 
on  a  long  analysis  of  how  joint  housekeeping  could  be  managed 
if  Tishy  would  consent  to  be  absorbed  into  the  Bradshaw  house- 
hold. She  made  rather  a  grievance  of  it  that  Sally  could  not 
supply  data  of  the  sleeping  accommodation  at  Georgiana  Terrace, 
Bayswater.  If  she  had  known  that,  she  could  have  got  them  all 
billeted  on  different  rooms.  As  it  was,  she  had  to  be  content 
to  enlarge  on  the  many  economies  the  family  could  achieve  if 
they  consented  to  be  guided  by  a  person  of  experience — e.g., 
herself. 


292  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Of  course,  dinner  would  have  to  be  late,"  she  said,  "because 
of  Mr.  Bradshaw  not  getting  home  till  nearly  eight.  They  would 
have  to  make  it  supper.  And  it  might  be  cold;  it's  a  great 
saving,  and  makes  it  so  easy  where  there's  one  servant."  Sally 
shuddered  with  horror  at  this  implied  British  household.  Poor 
Tishy! 

"But  they're  not  going  to  marry  till  they  see  their  way,"  she 
exclaimed  in  despair.  She  felt  that  Tishy  and  Julius  were 
being  involved,  entangled,  immeshed  by  an  old  matrimonial  octo- 
pus in  gilt-rimmed  spectacles — like  Professor  Wilson's — who 
could  knit  tranquilly  all  the  while,  while  she  herself  could  do 
nothing  to  save  them.  "It  might  be  cold!!"  Every  evening, 
perhaps — who  knows? 

"Very  proper,  my  dear."  Thus  the  Octopus.  "I  felt  sure 
such  a  nice,  sensible  girl  as  Miss  Wilson  never  would.  That  is 
Conrad."  It  really  was  a  sound  of  a  latch-key,  but  speech  is  no 
mere  slave  to  fact. 

"And  I  was  really  quite  glad  when  Dr.  Prosy  came  in — the 
way  the  Goody  was  going  on  about  Tishy!"  So  Sally  said  to  her 
mother  when  she  had  completed  her  report  of  the  portion  of  this 
visit  she  chose  to  tell  about.  On  which  her  mother  said,  "What 
a  dear  little  humbug  you  are,  kitten,"  and  she  replied,  as  we 
have  heard  her  reply  before,  "We-e-ell,  there's  nothing  in  that!" 
and  posed  as  one  who  has  been  misrepresented.  But  her  mother 
stuck  to  her  point,  which  was  that  Sally  knew  she  was  quite  glad 
when  Dr.  Vereker  came  in,  Tishy  or  no. 

Whatever  the  reason  was  that  Sally  was  quite  glad  at  the  ap- 
pearance of  Dr.  Prosy,  there  could  be  no  doubt  about  the  fact. 
Her  laugh  reached  the  cook  in  the  kitchen,  who  denounced  Crad- 
dock  the  parlourmaid  for  not  telling  her  it  was  Miss  Nightingale, 
when  it  might  have  been  a  visitor,  seeing  no  noise  come  of  it. 
Cook  remarked  she  knew  how  it  would  be — there  was  the  doctor 
picking  up  like — and  hadn't  she  told  Craddock  so?  But  Crad- 
dock  said  no! 

"Mrs.  Shoosmith  again — the  everlasting  Mrs.  Shoosmith!"  ex- 
claimed the  doctor.  It  was  very  unfeeling  of  them  to  laugh 
so  over  this  unhappy  woman,  who  was  the  survivor  of  two 
husbands  and  the  proprietor  of  one,  and  the  mother  of  seven 
daughters  and  five  sons,  each  of  whom  was  a  typical  "case,"  and 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  293 

all  of  whom  sought  admission  to  Institutes  on  their  merits. 
The  lives  of  the  whole  family  were  passed  in  applications 
for  testimonials  and  certificates,  alike  bearing  witness  to 
their  chronic  qualifications  for  it.  Sally  was  mysteriously  hard- 
hearted about  them,  while  fully  admitting  their  claims  on  the 
public. 

"That's  right,  Dr.  Conrad" — Sally  had  inaugurated  this  name 
for  herself — "Honoria  Purvis  Shoosmith.  Mind  you  put  in 
the  Purvis  right.  Now  write  down  lots  of  diseases  for  her  to 
have."  Sally  is  leaning  over  the  doctor's  chair  to  see  him  write 
as  she  says  this.  There  is  something  in  the  atmosphere  of  the 
situation  that  seems  to  clash  with  the  actual  business  in  hand. 
The  doctor  endeavours,  not  seriously  enough,  perhaps,  to  infuse 
a  flavour  of  responsibility. 

"My  professional  dignity,  Miss  Nightingale,  will  not  permit 
of  the  scheme  of  diagnosis  you  indicate.  If  any  disorders  entirely 
without  symptoms  were  known  to  exist,  I  should  be  delighted  to 
ascribe  the  whole  of  them  to  Mrs.  Shoosmith.  .  .  ." 

"Don't  be  prosy,  Dr.  Conrad.  Fire  away!  You  told  me  lota — 
you  know  you  did!  Rheumatic  arthritis — gout — pyaemia  .  .  ." 

"Come,  I  say,  Miss  Sally,  draw  it  mild.  I  never  said  pyaemia. 
Anaemia,  perhaps.  .  .  ." 

"Very  well,  Anne,  then!  We  can  let  it  go  at  that  Fire 
away!"  The  doctor  looks  round  his  own  corner  at  the  rows  of 
pearls  and  the  laugh  that  frames  them,  the  merry  eyebrows  and 
the  scintillating  eyes  they  accentuate.  A  perilous  intoxication, 
not  to  be  too  freely  indulged  in  by  a  serious  professional  man  at 
any  time — in  business  hours  certainly  not.  But  if  the  doctor 
were  quite  in  earnest  over  a  sort  of  Spartan  declaration  of  policy 
his  heart  feels  the  prudence  of,  would  that  responsive  twinkle 
flutter  in  his  face  behind  its  mock  gravity?  He  is  all  but  head 
over  ears  in  love  with  Sally — so  why  pretend?  Really,  we  don't 
know — and  that's  the  truth. 

"Wouldn't  it  be  a  good  way  to  consider  what  it  is  that  is  really 
the  matter,  and  make  out  the  statement  accordingly?"  He  goes 
on  looking  at  Sally,  scratches  himself  under  the  chin  with  his 
pen,  and  waits  for  an  answer. 

"Good,  sensible,  general  practitioner!  See  how  practical  he 
is!  Now,  I  should  never  have  thought  of  that!" 


294  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Well,  what  shall  we  put  her  down  as?  Chronic  arthritis — 
spinal  curvature — tuberculosis  of  the  cervical  vertebra?" 

"Those  all  sound  very  nice.  But  I  don't  think  it  matters 
which  you  choose.  If  she  hasn't  got  it  now,  she'll  develop  it 
if  I  describe  it.  When  I  told  her  mother  couldn't  get  rid  of  her 
neuritis,  she  immediately  asked  to  know  the  symptoms,  and 
forthwith  claimed  them  as  her  own.  'Well,  there  now,  and  to 
think  what  I  was  just  a-sayin'  to  Shoosmith,  this  very  morning! 
Just  in  the  crick  of  the  thumb-joint,  you  can't  'ardly  abear  your- 
self!' And  then  she  told  how  she  said  to  Shoosmith  frequent, 
where  was  the  use  of  his  getting  impatient,  and  exclaimin'  the 
worst  expressions?  Because  his  language  went  beyond  a  quart, 
and  no  reasonable  excuse." 

"Mr.  Shoosmith  doesn't  seem  a  very  promising  sort?  He's  a 
tailor,  isn't  he?" 

"No;  he's  a  messenger.  He  runs  on  errands  and  does  odd 
jobs.  But  he  can't  run — I've  seen  him! — he  can  only  shamble. 
And  his  voice  is  hoarse  and  inaudible.  And  he  has  a  drawback — 
two  drawbacks,  in  fact.  He  is  no  sooner  giv'  coppers  on  a  job 
than  he  drinks  them." 

"What's  the  other?" 

"His  susceptibility  to  intoxicants.  His  'ed  is  that  weak  that 
'most  anythink  upsets  him.  So  you  see." 

"Poor  chap!  He's  handicapped  in  the  race  of  life.  As  for 
his  wife,  when  I  saw  her  she  was  suffering  with  acute  rheumatism 
and  bad  feeling — and,  I  may  add,  defective  reasoning  power. 
However  .  .  ."  The  doctor  fills  in  blanks,  adds  a  signature, 
says  "There  we  are!"  and  Mrs.  Shoosmith  is  disposed  of  as  an 
applicant  to  the  institution,  and  will  no  doubt  reap  some  benefits 
we  need  not  know  the  particulars  of.  But  she  remains  as  a  sub- 
ject for  the  student  of  human  life — also,  tea  comes — also,  which 
is  interesting,  Sally  proceeds  to  make  it. 

Now,  if  the  reserves  this  young  lady  had  made  about  this 
visit,  if  her  pretence  that  it  was  a  necessity  arising  from  a  chari- 
table organization,  if  the  colour  that  was  given  to  that  pretence 
by  her  interview  with  the  servant  Craddock — if  any  of  these 
things  had  been  more  or  .less  than  the  grossest  hypocrisy,  would 
it,  we  ask  you,  have  been  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course  that  she 
should  pull  off  her  gloves  and  sit  down  to  make  tea  with  a  mature 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  295 

knowledge  of  how  to  get  the  little  lynch-pin  out  of  the  spirit- 
lamp,  and  of  how  many  spoonfuls?  No;  the  fact  is,  Sally  was 
a  more  frequent  visitor  to  the  image  of  Buddha  than  she  chose 
to  admit;  and  as  for  the  doctor,  he  seized  every  legitimate  oppor- 
tunity of  'cello  practice  at  Krakatoa  Villa.  But  G.P.'s  cannot 
call  their  time  their  own. 

"The  funny  part  of  Mrs.  Shoosmith,"  said  Sally,  when  the  pot 
was  full  up  and  the  lid  shut,  "is  that  the  moment  she  is  brought 
into  contact  with  warm  soapy  water  and  scrubbing-brushes,  she 
seems  to  renew  her  youth.  She  brings  large  pins  out  of  her 
mouth  and  secures  her  apron.  And  then  she  scrubs.  Now  you 
may  blow  the  methylated  out  and  make  yourself  useful,  Dr. 
Conrad." 

"Does  she  put  back  the  pins  when  she's  done  scrubbing?"  the 
doctor  asks,  when  he  has  made  himself  useful. 

"She  puts  them  back  against  another  time,  so  I  have  under- 
stood. I  suppose  they  live  in  her  mouth.  That's  yours  with 
two  lumps.  That  is  your  mother's — no,  I  won't  pour  it  yet. 
She's  asleep." 

For  the  fact  is  that  the  Goody,  anxious  to  invest  herself  with 
an  appearance  of  forbearance  towards  the  frivolities  of  youth, 
readiness  to  forego  (from  amiability)  any  share  in  the  conversa- 
tion, insight  into  the  rapports  of  others  (especially  male  and  fe- 
male rapports),  and  general  superiority  to  human  weakness,  had 
endeavoured  to  express  all  these  things  by  laying  down  her  knit- 
ting, folding  her  hands  on  her  circumference,  and  looking  as  if 
she  knew  and  could  speak  if  she  chose.  But  if  you  do  this, 
even  the  maintenance  of  an  attentive  hypodermic  smile  is  not 
enough  to  keep  you  awake — and  off  you  go!  The  Goody  did, 
and  the  smile  died  slowly  off  into  a  snore.  Never  mind!  She 
was  in  want  of  rest,  so  she  said.  It  was  curious,  too,  for  she 
seldom  got  anything  else. 

It  would  have  been  unfeeling  to  wake  her,  so  Dr.  Vereker  went 
and  sat  a  good  deal  nearer  Sally,  not  to  make  more  noise  than 
was  necessary.  This  reacted,  an  outsider  might  have  inferred, 
on  the  subject-matter  of  the  conversation,  making  it  more  serious 
in  tone.  And  as  Sally  put  the  little  Turk's  cap  over  the  pot  to 
keep  it  warm,  and  the  doctor  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  blacker 
the  tea  was  the  better  his  mother  liked  it,  this  lasted  until  that 


296  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

lady  woke  up  with  a  start  a  long  time  after,  and  said  she  must 
have  been  asleep.  Then,  as  Cook  was  aware  in  the  kitchen,  some 
more  noise  came  of  it,  and  Sally  carried  off  Mrs.  Shoosmith's 
certificate. 

"You  know,  Dr.  Conrad,  it  makes  you  look  like  a  real  medical 
man,"  she  said  at  the  gate,  referring  to  the  detention  of  the 
doctor's  pill-box,  which  awaited  him,  and  he  replied  that  it  didn't 
matter.  King,  the  driver,  looked  as  if  he  thought  it  did,  and 
appeared  morose.  Is  it  because  coachmen  always  keep  their  ap- 
pointments with  society  and  society  never  keeps  its  appointments 
with  coachmen  that  a  settled  melancholy  seems  to  brood  over 
them,  and  their  souls  seem  cankered  with  misanthropy? 

The  doctor  had  rather  a  rough  time  that  evening.  For  among 
the  patients  he  was  going  to  try  to  see  and  get  back  to  dinner 
(thus  ran  current  speech  of  those  concerned)  there  was  a  young 
man  from  the  West  Indies,  who  had  come  into  something  con- 
siderable. But  he  was  afflicted  with  a  disorder  he  called  the 
"jumps,"  and  the  doctor's  diagnosis,  if  correct,  showed  that  the 
vera  causa  of  this  aptly-named  disease  was  alcohol  of  sp.  gr. 
something,  to  which  the  patient  was  in  the  habit  of  adding  very 
few  atoms  of  water  indeed.  The  doctor  was  doing  all  he  could 
to  change  the  regimen,  but  only  succeeded  on  making  his  patient 
weak  and  promise  amendment.  On  this  particular  evening  the 
latter  quite  unexpectedly  went  for  the  doctor's  throat,  shouting, 
"I  see  your  plans!"  and  King  had  to  be  summoned  from  his  box 
to  help  restrain  him.  So  Dr.  Vereker  was  tired  when  he  got 
home  late  to  dinner,  and  would  have  felt  miserable,  only  he  could 
always  shut  his  eyes  and  think  of  Sally's  hands  that  had  come 
over  his  shoulder  to  discriminate  points  in  Mrs.  Shoosmith's 
magna-charta.  They  had  come  so  near  him  that  he  could  smell 
the  fresh  sweet  dressing  of  the  new  kid  gloves — six  and  a  half, 
we  believe. 

But  although  he  liked  his  Goody  mother  to  talk  to  him  about 
the  girl  who  had  christened  her  so,  he  was  tired  enough  this 
evening  to  wish  that  her  talk  had  flowed  in  a  less  pebbly  channel. 
For  she  chose  this  opportunity  to  enlarge  upon  the  duties  of  young 
married  women  towards  their  husbands'  parents,  their  mothers 
especially.  Her  conclusion  was  a  little  unexpected: 

"I  have  said  nothing  throughout,  my  dear.     I  should  not  dream 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  297 

of  doing  so.  But  if  I  had  I  trust  I  should  have  made  it  clearly 
understood  how  I  regarded  Miss  Leetitia  Wilson's  conduct." 

"But  there  wasn't  any.  Nobody  contracted  a  private  mar- 
riage." 

"My  dear  Conrad!  Have  I  said  that  any  one  has  done  so? 
Have  I  used  the  expression  'private  marriage'?" 

"Why — no.     I  don't  think  you  have.     Not  to-day,  at  least." 

"When  have  I  done  so?  Have  I  not,  on  the  contrary,  from 
the  very  beginning  told  you  I  should  take  the  first  opportunity 
of  disbelieving  so  absurd  and  mischievous  a  story?  And  have 
I  lost  a  moment?  Was  it  not  the  first  word  I  said  to  Sally 
Nightingale  before  you  came  in,  and  without  a  soul  in  the  room 
to  hear?  I  only  ask  for  justice.  But  if  my  son  misrepresents 
me,  what  can  I  expect  from  others?"  At  this  point  patient 
toleration  only. 

"But,  mother  dear,  I  don't  want  to  misrepresent  you.  Only 
I'll  be  hanged  if  I  see  why  Tishy  Wilson  is  to  be  hauled  over  the 
coals?" 

A  suggestion  of  a  proper  spirit  showed  itself.  "I  am  accus- 
tomed to  your  language,  and  will  say  nothing.  But,  my  dear 
Conrad,  for  you  are  always  my  son,  and  will  remain  so,  whatever 
your  language  may  be,  do  you,  my  dear  Conrad,  do  you  really 
sanction  the  attitude  of  a  young  lady  who  refuses  to  marry — 
public  and  private  don't  come  into  the  matter — because  of  a 
groundless  antipathy?  For  it  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that  Mrs. 
Julius  Bradshaw  is  a  person  of  rather  superior  class." 

"She's  Mrs.  Bradshaw — not  Mrs.  Julius.  But  what  makes 
you  suppose  Tishy  Wilson  objects  to  her?" 

"My  dear  Conrad,  you  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  is  a  mere 
prevarication.  Why  evade  the  point?  But  in  my  opinion  you 
do  wisely  not  to  attempt  any  defence  of  Laetitia  Wilson.  It  may 
be  true  that  she  has  not  laid  herself  open  to  misconstruction  in 
this  case,  but  the  lack  of  good  feeling  is  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses the  same  as  if  she  had ;  and  I  must  say,  my  dear  Conrad, 
I  am  surprised  that  a  professional  man  with  your  qualifications 
should  undertake  to  justify  her." 

"But  Miss  Wilson  hasn't  done  anything!  What  are  you  wig- 
ging away  at  her  for,  mother  dear?" 

"Have  I  not  expressly  said  that  she  has  done  nothing  whatever? 


298  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Of  course  she  has  not,  and,  I  hope,  never  will.  But  it  is  easy  for 
you,  Conrad,  to  take  refuge  in  a  fact  which  I  have  been  scrupu- 
lously careful  to  admit  from  the  very  beginning.  And  'wigging 
away!'  What  language!" 

"Never  mind  the  language,  mother  darling!  Tell  me  what 
it's  all  about."  Tired  as  he  is,  he  gets  up  from  the  chair  he  has 
not  been  smoking  in  (because  this  is  the  drawing-room)  to  go 
round  and  kiss  what  is  probably  the  fatty  integument  of  a  very 
selfish  old  woman,  but  which  he  believes  to  be  that  of  an  affec- 
tionate mother.  "What's  it  all  about?"  he  repeats. 

"My  dear  Conrad!  Is  it  not  a  little  unfeeling  to  ask  me  what 
it  is  all  about  when  you  know?" 

"I  don't  know,  mother  dear.  I  can  do  any  amount  of  guess- 
ing, but  I  don't  know." 

"I  think,  my  dear,  if  you  will  light  my  candle  and  ring  for 
Craddock  to  shut  up,  that  I  had  better  go  to  bed."  Which  her 
son  does,  but  perversely  abstains  from  giving  the  old  lady  any 
assistance  to  saying  what  is  in  her  mind  to  say. 

But  she  did  not  intend  to  be  baffled.  For  when  he  had  piloted 
her  to  her  state  apartment,  carrying  her  candle,  under  injunctions 
on  no  account  to  spill  the  grease,  and  a  magazine  of  wraps  and 
wools  and  unintelligible  sundries,  she  contrived  to  invest  an 
elucidation  of  her  ideas  with  an  appearance  of  benevolence  by 
working  in  a  readiness  to  sacrifice  herself  to  her  son's  selfish 
longing  for  tobacco. 

"Only  just  hear  me  to  the  end,  my  dear,  and  then  you  can 
get  away  to  your  pipe.  What  I  did  not  say — for  you  interrupted 
me — did  not  relate  so  much  to  Miss  Latitia  Wilson  as  to  Sally 
Nightingale.  She,  I  am  sure,  would  never  come  between  any 
man  she  married  and  his  mother.  I  am  making  no  reference  to 
any  one  whatever,  although,  however  old  I  am,  I  have  eyes  in  my 
head  and  can  see.  But  I  can  read  character,  and  that  is  my  in- 
terpretation of  Sally  Nightingale's." 

"Sally  Nightingale  and  I  are  not  going  to  make  it  up,  if  that's 
what  you  mean,  mother.  She  wouldn't  have  me,  for  one 
thing " 

"My  dear,  I  am  not  going  to  argue  the  point.  It  is  nearly 
eleven,  and  unless  I  get  to  bed  I  shan't  sleep.  Now  go  away  to 
your  pipe,  and  think  of  what  I  have  said.  And  don't  slam  your 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  299 

door  and  wake  me  when  you  come  up."  She  offered  him  a  selec- 
tion to  kiss,  shutting  her  eyes  tight.  And  he  gave  place  to  Crad- 
dock,  and  went  away  to  his  unwholesome,  smelly  habit,  as  his 
mamma  had  more  than  once  called  it.  His  face  was  perplexed 
and  uncomfortable;  however,  it  got  ease  after  a  few  puffs  of  pale 
returns  and  a  welcome  minute  of  memory  of  the  bouquet  of  those 
sixes. 

But  his  little  happy  oasis  was  a  very  small  one.  For  a  mes- 
senger came  with  a  furious  pull  at  the  night-bell  and  a  summons 
for  the  doctor.  His  delirium-tremens  case  had  very  nearly  quali- 
fied its  brain  for  a  P.M. — at  least,  if  there  were  any  of  it  left — 
by  getting  at  a  pistol  and  taking  a  bad  aim  at  it.  The  unhappy 
dipsomaniac  was  half-shot,  and  prompt  medical  attendance  was 
necessary  to  prevent  the  something  considerable  being  claimed 
by  his  heir-at-law. 

Whether  this  came  to  pass  or  not  does  not  concern  us.  This 
much  is  certain,  that  at  the  end  of  six  months  which  this  chapter 
represents,  and  which  you  have  probably  skipped,  he  was  as 
much  forgotten  by  the  doctor  as  the  pipe  his  patient's  suicidal 
escapade  had  interrupted,  or  the  semi-vexation  with  his  mother 
he  was  using  it  as  an  anodyne  for. 


CHAPTEE  XXVI 

MORNING  AT  LADBROKE  GROVE  ROAD,  AND  FAMILY  DISSENSION.  FAC- 
CIOLATI,  AND  A  LEGACY.  THE  LAST  CONCERT  THIS  SEASON.  THE 
GOODY  WILL  COME  TO  IGGULDEN's.  BUT  FANCY  PROSY  IN  LOVE ! 

TOWAEDS  the  end  of  the  July  that  very  quickly  followed  Rosa- 
lind  noticed  an  intensification  of  what  might  be  called  the  Lad- 
broke  Grove  Road  Eow  Chronicle — a  record  transmitted  by  Sally 
to  her  real  and  adopted  parent  in  the  instalments  in  which  she 
received  it  from  Tishy. 

This  record  on  one  occasion  depicted  a  battle-royal  at  break- 
fast, "over  the  marmalade,"  Sally  said.  She  added  that  the 
Dragon  might  just  as  well  have  let  the  Professor  alone.  "He 
was  reading,"  she  said,  "  'The  Classification  of  Roots  in  Pre- 
historic Dialects,'  because  I  saw  the  back;  and  Tacitus  was  on  the 
butter.  But  the  Dragon  likes  the  grease  to  spoil  the  bindings, 
and  she  knows  it." 

A  vision  of  priceless  Groliers  soaking  passed  through  Rosa- 
lind's mind.  "Wasn't  that  what  this  row  was  about,  then?"  she 
asked. 

"I  don't  think  so,"  said  Sally,  who  had  gone  home  to  break- 
fast with  Tishy  after  an  early  swim.  "It's  difficult  to  say  what 
it  was  about.  Really,  the  Professor  had  hardly  said  anything  at 
all,  and  the  Dragon  said  she  thought  he  was  forgetting  the 
servants.  Fossett  wasn't  even  in  the  room.  And  then  the 
Dragon  said,  'Yes,  shut  it,'  to  Athene.  Fancy  saying  'Yes,  shut 
it,'  in  a  confidential  semitone!  Really,  I  can't  see  that  it  was 
so  very  wrong  of  Egerton,  although  he  is  a  booby,  to  say  there 
was  no  fun  in  having  a  row  before  breakfast.  He  didn't  mean 
them  to  think  he  meant  them  to  hear." 

"But  how  did  it  get  from  the  marmalade  to  Tishy's  haber- 
dasher?" asked  Fenwick. 

"Can't  say,  Jeremiah.  It  all  came  in  a  buzz,  like  a  wopses 
nest.  And  then  Egerton  said  it  was  rows,  rows,  rows  all  day 

300 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  301 

long,  and  he  should  hook  it  off  and  get  a  situation.  It  is  rows, 
rows,  rows,  so  it's  no  use  pretending  it  isn't.  But  it  always  comes 
round  to  the  haberdasher  grievance  in  the  end.  This  time  Tishy 
went  to  her  father  in  the  library,  and  confessed  up  about  Ken- 
sington Gardens." 

Both  hearers  said,  "Oh,  I  see!"  and  then  Sally  transmitted  the 
report  of  this  interview.  It  had  not  been  stormy,  and  may  be 
looked  at  by  the  light  of  the  Professor's  last  remark.  "The  up- 
shot is,  Tish,  that  you  can  marry  Julius  against  your  mother's 
consent  right  off,  and  never  lose  a  penny  of  your  aunt's  legacy." 

"Legacy  is  good,  very  excellent  good,"  said  Fenwick.  "How 
much  was  it,  Sarah?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  Lots — a  good  lot — a  thousand  pounds! 
The  Dragon  wanted  to  make  out  that  it  was  conditional  on  her 
consent  to  Tishy's  marriage.  That  was  fibs.  But  what  I  don't 
see  is  that  Gaffer  Wilson  ever  said  a  word  to  Tishy  about  his  own 
objections  to  her  marrying  Julius,  if  he  has  any!" 

"Perhaps,"  Rosalind  suggested,  "she  hasn't  told  you  all  he 
said."  But  to  this  Sally  replied  that  Tishy  had  told  her  over 
and  over  and  over  again,  only  she  said  over  so  often  that  her 
adopted  parent  said  for  Heaven's  sake  stop,  or  he  should  write 
the  word  into  his  letters.  However,  the  end  of  the  last  despatch 
was  at  hand,  and  he  himself  took  up  the  conversation  on  sign- 
ing it. 

"Yours  faithfully,  Algernon  Fenwick.  That's  the  lot!  I 
agree  with  the  kitten." 

"What  about?" 

"About  if  he  has  any.  I  believe  he'd  be  glad  if  Miss  Wilson 
took  the  bit  in  her  teeth  and  bolted." 

"You  agree  with  Prosy?"  As  Sally  says  this,  without  a 
thought  in  a  thoughtful  face  but  what  belongs  to  the  subject,  her 
mother  is  conscious  that  she  herself  is  quite  prepared  to  infer  that 
Prosy  already  knows  all  about  it.  She  has  got  into  the  habit 
of  hearing  that  he  knows  about  things. 

"What  does  Vereker  say?"    Thus  Fenwick. 

"He'll  be  here  in  a  minute,  and  you  can  ask  him.  That's  him! 
I  mean  that's  his  ring." 

"It's  just  like  any  other  ring,  chick."  It  is  her  mother  who 
speaks.  But  Sally  says:  "Nonsense!  as  if  I  didn't  know  Prosy's 


302  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ring!"  And  Dr.  Vereker  appears,  quartet  bound,  for  this  was 
the  weekly  musical  evening  at  Krakatoa  Villa. 

"Jeremiah  wants  to  know  whether  you  don't  think  Tishy's 
male  parent  would  be  jolly  glad  if  she  and  Julius  took  the  bit  in 
their  teeth  and  bolted?"  "I  shouldn't  be  the  least  surprised  if 
they  did,"  is  the  doctor's  reply.  But  it  does  not  strike  Sally  as 
rising  to  the  height  of  her  Draconic  summary. 

"You're  not  shining,  Dr.  Conrad,"  she  says;  "you're  evading 
the  point.  What  do  you  think  Gaffer  Bristles  thinks,  that's  the 
point?"  Dr.  Conrad  appears  greatly  exhilarated  and  refreshed 
by  Sally,  whose  mother  seems  to  share  his  feeling,  but  she  en- 
joins caution,  for  all  that. 

"Do  take  care,  kitten,"  she  says.  "They're  on  the  stairs." 
But  Sally  considers  "they"  are  miles  off,  and  will  take  ages 
getting  upstairs.  "They've  only  just  met  at  the  door,"  is  her 
explanatory  comment,  showing  appreciation  of  one  human  weak- 
ness. 

"Suppose  we  were  to  get  it  put  in  more  official  form!"  Fen- 
wick  suggests.  "Would  Professor  Sales  Wilson  be  very  much 
shocked  if  his  daughter  and  Paganini  made  a  runaway  match 
of  it?"  The  name  Paganini  has  somehow  leaked  out  of  Cattley's 
counting-house,  and  become  common  property. 

"I  think,  if  you  ask  me,"  says  Vereker,  speaking  to  Fenwick, 
but  never  taking  his  eyes  off  Sally,  on  whom  they  feed,  "that 
Professor  Sales  Wilson  would  be  very  much  relieved." 

"That's  right!"  says  Sally,  speaking  as  to  a  pupil  who  has 
profited.  "Now  you're  being  a  good  little  General  Practitioner." 
And  then,  the  ages  having  elapsed  with  some  alacrity,  the  door 
opens  and  the  two  subjects  of  discussion  make  their  appearance. 

The  anomalous  cousin  did  not  come  with  them,  having  sub- 
sided. Mrs.  Fenwick  herself  had  taken  the  pianoforte  parts 
lately.  She  had  always  been  a  fair  pianist,  and  application  had 
made  her  passable — a  good  make-shift,  anyhow.  So  you  may  fill 
out  the  programme  to  your  liking — it  really  doesn't  matter  what 
they  played — and  consider  that  this  musical  evening  was  one  of 
their  best  that  season.  It  was  just  as  well  it  should  be  so,  as  it 
was  their  last  till  the  autumn.  Sally  and  her  mother  were  going 
to  the  seaside  all  August  and  some  of  September,  and  Fenwink 
was  coming  with  them  for  a  week  at  first,  and  after  that  for  short 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  303 

week-end  spells.     He  had  become  a  partner  in  the  wine-business, 
and  was  not  so  much  tied  to  the  desk. 

"Well,  then,  it's  good-bye,  I  suppose?"  The  speaker  is  Rosa- 
lind herself,  as  the  Stradivarius  is  being  put  to  bed.  But  she 
hasn't  the  heart  to  let  the  verdict  stand — at  least,  as  far  as  the 
doctor  is  concerned.  She  softens  it,  adds  a  recommendation  to 
mercy.  "Unless  you'll  come  down  and  pay  us  a  visit.  We'll  put 
you  up  somewhere." 

"I'm  afraid  it  isn't  possible,"  is  the  answer.  But  the  doctor 
can't  get  his  eyes  really  off  Sally.  Even  as  a  small  boy  might 
strain  at  the  leash  to  get  back  to  a  source  of  cake  against  the 
grasp  of  an  iron  nurse,  even  so  Dr.  Conrad  rebels  against  the 
grip  of  professional  engagements,  which  is  the  name  of  his  cold, 
remorseless  tyrant.  But  Sally  is  harnessing  up  a  coach-and-six 
to  drive  through  human  obligations.  Her  manner  of  addressing 
the  doctor  suggests  previous  talk  on  the  subject. 

"You  must  get  the  locum,  and  come.  You  know  you  can, 
and  it's  all  nonsense  about  can't."  What  would  be  effrontery  in 
another  character  makes  Sally  speak  through  and  across  the  com- 
pany. A  secret  confidence  between  herself  and  the  doctor,  that 
you  are  welcome  to  the  full  knowledge  of,  and  be  hanged  to  you! 
is  what  the  manner  of  the  two  implies. 

"I  spoke  to  Neckitt  about  it,  and  he  can't  manage  it,"  says  the 
doctor  in  the  same  manner.  But  the  first  and  second  violin  are 
waiting  to  take  leave. 

"We'll  say  good-night,  then — or  good-bye,  if  if  s  for  six  weeks." 
Tishy  is  perfectly  unblushing  about  the  we.  She  might  be  con- 
veying Mr.  Tishy  away.  They  go,  and  get  away  from  Dr. 
Vereker,  by-the-bye.  An  awkward  third  isn't  wanted. 

"There's  plenty  more  Neckitts  where  he  comes  from,"  pursues 
Sally,  as  the  "other  two" — for  that  is  how  Fenwick  thinks  of 
them — get  themselves  and  their  instruments  out  of  the  house. 
"So  don't  be  nonsensical,  Dr.  Conrad.  .  .  .  Stop  a  moment.  I 
must  speak  to  Tishy."  And  Sally  gives  chase,  and  overtakes  the 
other  two  just  by  the  fire-alarm,  where  Fenwick  came  to  a  stand- 
still. Do  you  remember?  It  certainly  has  been  a  record  effort 
to  "get  away  first."  You  know  this  experience  yourself  at 
parties?  Sally  speaks  to  Tishy  in  the  glorious  summer  night, 


304  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

and  the  three  talk  together  earnestly  together  under  innumerable 
constellations,  and  one  gas-lamp  that  elbows  the  starry  heavens 
out  of  the  way — a  self-asserting,  cheeky  gas-lamp. 

The  doctor  organizes  tactics  rapidly.  He  can  hear  that  Sally's 
step  goes  up  the  street,  and  then  the  voices  at  a  distance.  If  he 
can  say  good-bye  and  rush  away  just  as  Sally  does  the  same,  why 
then  they  will  meet  outside,  don't  you  see? 

Rosalind  and  her  husband  seem  to  have  wireless  telegrams 
passing.  For  when  Sally  vanishes  there  is  a  ring  as  of  instruc- 
tion received  in  the  tone  of  Fenwick's  voice  as  he  addresses  the 
doctor: 

"Couldn't  you  manage  to  get  your  mother  to  come  too,  Vereker? 
She  must  be  terribly  in  want  of  a  change." 

"So  I  tell  her;  but  she's  so  difficult  to  move." 

"Have  a  sedan-chair  thing " 

"'I  don't  mean  that — not  physically  difficult.  I  mean  she's 
got  so  anchored  no  one  can  persuade  her  to  move.  She  hasn't 
been  away  for  ages." 

"Sally  must  go  and  persuade  her."  It  is  Rosalind  who  says 
this.  "I'm  sure  Sally  will  manage  it." 

"She  will  if  any  one  can,"  says  the  doctor.  "Of  course,  I  could 
soon  get  a  locum  if  there  was  a  chance  of  mother."  And  then 
the  conversation  supports  itself  on  the  possible  impossibility  of 
finding  a  lodging  at  St.  Sennans-on-Sea,  and  consoles  itself  with 
its  intense  improbability  till  the  doctor  finds  it  necessary  to  de- 
part with  the  promptitude  of  a  fire-engine  suddenly  rung  up. 

He  had  calculated  his  time  to  a  nicety,  for  he  met  Sally  just 
as  "the  other  two"  got  safe  round  the  corner. 

"Oh  no,"  said  Fenwick,  replying  to  a  query;  "he  doesn't  mean 
to  carry  it  all  the  way.  He'll  pick  up  a  cab  at  the  corner."  The 
query  was  about  the  violoncello,  and  Fenwick  was  coming  back 
to  the  room  where  his  wife  was  closing  the  piano  in  anticipation 
of  Ann.  He  had  discreetly  launched  the  instrument  and  its 
owner  under  the  stars,  and  left  the  street  door  standing  wide 
open — a  shallow  pretence  that  he  believed  Sally  already  in  touch 
with  it. 

"They  are  a  funny  couple,"  Rosalind  said.  "Just  fancy! 
They've  known  each  other  two  years,  and  there  they  are!  But 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  305 

I  do  like  him.  It's  all  his  mother,  you  know  .  .  .  what  is?  ... 
why,  goose — of  course  I  mean  he  would  speak  at  once  if  it  wasn't 
for  that  obese  mother  of  his." 

"But  she's  so  fond  of  Sally."  In  reply  to  this  his  wife  kisses 
his  cheeks,  forehead,  and  chin  consecutively,  and  he  says  it  was 
right  that  time,  only  the  other  way  round.  This  refers  to  a 
system  founded  on  the  crossing  incident  at  Rheims. 

"Of  course  she  is,  darling;  or  pretends  she  is.  But  he  can 
neither  divorce  his  mamma  nor  ask  the  kitten  to  marry  her.  You 
see?" 

"I  see — in  fact,  I've  thought  so  myself.  In  confidence,  you 
know.  But  is  no  compromise  possible?"  Rosalind  shakes  a 
slow,  regretful,  negative  head,  and  her  lips  form  a  silent 
"No!" 

"Not  with  her.  The  woman  has  her  own  share  of  selfishness, 
and  her  son's,  too.  He  has  none." 

"But  Sally." 

"I  see  what  you  mean.  Sally  goes  to  the  wall  one  way  if  she 
doesn't  the  other.  So  he  works  out  selfish,  poor  dear  fellow!  in 
the  end.  But,  Gerry  darling,  let  me  tell  you  this:  you  have  no 
idea  how  impossible  that  young  man  thinks  it  that  a  girl  should 
love  him.  If  he  thought  it  possible  the  kitten  really  cared  about, 
or  could  care  about  him,  he'd  go  clean  off  his  head.  Indeed,  I 
am  right." 

"Perhaps  you  are.    There  she  is." 

Sally  ran  straight  upstairs,  leaving  Ann  to  close  the  door. 
She  at  once  discharged  her  mind  of  its  burden,  more  suo. 

"Prosy  thinks  so,  too!" 

"Thinks  what?" 

"Thinks  they'll  go  and  get  married  one  fine  morning,  whether 
or  no!" 

But  she  seemed  to  be  the  only  one  much  excited  about  this. 
Something  was  preoccupying  the  other  two  minds,  and  our  Sally 
had  not  the  remotest  notion  what. 

Nevertheless,  it  came  about  that  before  the  next  Monday — 
the  day  of  Sally's  departure  with  her  mother  to  St.  Sennans-on- 
Sea — that  young  person  paid  a  farewell  visit  to  the  obese  mother 
of  her  medical  adviser,  and  found  her  knitting. 


306  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"That,  my  dear,  is  what  I  am  constantly  saying  to  Conrad," 
was  her  reply  to  a  suggestion  of  Sally's  that  she  wanted  change 
and  rest.  "Only  this  very  morning,  when  he  came  into  my 
room  to  see  that  I  had  fresh-made  toast — because  you  know,  my 
dear,  how  tiresome  servants  are  about  toast — they  make  it  over- 
night, and  warm  it  up  in  the  morning.  Cook  is  no  exception, 
and  I  have  complained  till  I'm  tired.  I  should  be  sorry  to 
change,  she's  been  here  so  long,  but  I  did  hear  the  other  day  of 
such  a  nice  respectable  person.  .  .  ." 

Sally  interrupted,  catching  at  a  slight  pause:  "But  when  Dr. 
Conrad  came  into  your  room,  what  did  he  say?" 

"My  dear,  I  was  going  to  tell  you."  She  paused,  with  closed 
eyes  and  folded  hands  of  aggressive  patience,  for  all  trace  of 
human  interruption  to  die  down;  then  resumed:  "I  said  to  Con- 
rad: 'I  think  you  might  have  thought  of  that  before.'  And  then 
he  was  sorry.  I  will  do  him  that  justice.  My  dear  boy  has 
his  faults,  as  I  know  too  well,  but  he  is  always  ready  to  admit  he 
is  wrong." 

"We  can  get  you  lodgings,  you  know,"  said  Sally,  from  sheer 
intuition,  for  she  had  not  a  particle  of  information,  so  far,  about 
what  passed  over  the  toast.  The  old  lady  seemed  to  think  the 
conversation  had  been  sufficiently  well  filled  out,  for  she  merely 
said,  "Facing  the  sea,"  and  went  on  knitting. 

Sally  and  her  mother  knew  St.  Sennan  well — had  been  at  his 
watering-place  twice  before — so  she  was  able,  as  it  were,  to  fore- 
cast lodgings  on  the  spot.  "I  dare  say  Mrs.  Iggulden's  is  vacant," 
she  said.  "I  wish  you  could  have  hers,  she's  such  a  nice  old 
body.  Her  husband  was  a  pilot,  and  she  has  one  son  a  coast- 
guard and  another  in  the  navy.  And  one  daughter  has  no  legs, 
but  can  do  shell-work;  and  the  other's  married  a  tax-collector." 

But  Goody  Vereker  was  not  going  to  be  beguiled  into  making 
herself  agreeable.  She  took  up  the  attitude  that  Sally  was  young, 
and  easily  deceived.  She  threw  a  wet  blanket  over  her  narrative 
of  the  Iggulden  family,  and  ignored  any  murmurs  that  came  from 
beneath  it.  "Sea-faring  folk  are  all  alike,"  so  she  said.  "When 
I  was  your  age,  my  dear,  I  simply  worshipped  them.  My  father 
and  all  his  brothers  were  devoted  to  the  sea,  and  my  Uncle  David 
published  an  account  of  his  visit  to  the  Brazils.  But  you  will 
learn  by  experience.  At  any  rate,  I  trust  there  are  no  vermin. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  307 

That  is  always  my  terror  in  these  lodging-houses,  and  ill-aired 
beds." 

Was  it  fair,  Sally  thought  to  herself,  to  expose  that  dear  old 
Mrs.  Iggulden,  who  lived  in  a  wooden  dwelling  covered  with  tar, 
between  two  houses  built  of  black  shiny  bricks,  but  consisting 
chiefly  of  bay-windows  with  elderly  visitors  in  them  looking 
through  telescopes  at  the  shipping,  and  telling  the  credulous  it 
was  brigs  or  schooners — was  it  fair  to  expose  Mrs.  Iggulden  to 
this  gilt-spectacled  lob- worm?  Sally  didn't  know  that  Mrs.  Ig- 
gulden could  show  a  proper  spirit,  because  in  her  own  case  the 
conditions  had  never  been  favourable.  They  had  practised  no 
incantations. 

"Very  well,  then,  Mrs.  Vereker.  As  soon  as  ever  mamma  and 
I  have  shaken  down,  we'll  see  about  Iggulden's;  and  if  they  can't 
take  you  somebody  else  will." 

"I  am  in  your  hands,"  said  the  Goody,  smiling  faintly  and 
submissively.  She  leaned  back  with  her  eyes  closed,  and  was 
afraid  she  had  done  too  much.  She  used  to  have  periodical  con- 
victions to  that  effect. 

Sally  had  an  appointment  with  Laetitia  Wilson  at  the  swim- 
ming bath,  so  the  Goody,  in  an  access  of  altruism,  perceived  that 
she  mustn't  keep  her.  She  herself  would  try  to  rest  a  little. 

All  people,  as  we  suppose,  lead  two  lives,  more  or  less — their 
outer  life,  that  of  the  world  and  action,  and  an  inner  life  they 
have  all  to  themselves.  But  how  different  is  the  proportion  of 
the  two  lives  in  different  subjects !  And  how  much  less  painful 
the  latter  life  is  when  we  feel  we  could  tell  it  all  if  we  chose. 
Only  we  don't  choose,  because  it's  no  concern  of  yours  or  any 
one  else's. 

This  was  Sally's  frame  of  mind.  She  would  not  have  felt  the 
ghost  of  a  reserve  of  an  inmost  thought  (from  her  mother,  for 
instance)  in  the  face  of  questions  asked,  though  she  kept  her  own 
counsel  about  many  points  whose  elucidation  was  not  called  for. 
It  may  easily  be  that  Rosalind  asked  no  questions  about  some 
things,  because  she  had  no  wish  that  her  daughter  should  formu- 
late their  answers  too  decisively.  Her  relation  with  Conrad  Vere- 
ker, for  example.  Was  it  love,  or  what?  If  there  was  to  be 
marrying,  and  families,  and  that  sort  of  thing,  and  possible  inter- 


308  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ference  with  swimming-matches  and  athletics,  and  so  on,  would 
she  as  soon  choose  this  man  for  her  accomplice  as  any  other  she 
knew?  Suppose  she  was  to  hear  to-morrow  that  Dr.  Vereker 
was  engaged  to  Sylvia  Peplow,  would  she  be  glad  or  sorry? 

Rosalind  certainly  did  ask  no  such  questions.  If  she  had,  the 
answers  to  the  first  two  would  have  been,  we  surmise,  very  clear 
and  decisive.  What  nonsense!  Fancy  Prosy  being  in  love  with 
anybody,  or  anybody  being  in  love  with  Prosy!  And  as  for 
marrying,  the  great  beauty  of  it  all  was  that  there  was  to  be  no 
marrying.  Did  he  understand  that?  Oh  dear,  yes!  Prosy  un- 
derstood quite  well.  But  we  wonder,  is  the  image  our  mind 
forms  of  Sally's  answer  to  the  third  question  correct  or  incorrect? 
It  presents  her  to  us  as  answering  rather  petulantly:  "Why 
shouldn't  Dr.  Conrad  marry  Miss  Peplow,  if  he  likes,  and  she 
likes?  I  dare  say  she'd  be  ready  enough,  though!"  and  then  pre- 
tending to  look  out  of  the  window.  And  shortly  afterwards:  "I 
suppose  Prosy  has  a  right  to  his  private  affairs,  as  much  as  I 
have  to  mine."  But  with  lips  that  tighten  over  her  speech,  with- 
out a  smile.  Note  that  this  is  all  pure  hypothesis. 

But  she  had  nothing  to  conceal  that  she  knew  of,  had  Sally. 
What  a  difference  there  was  between  her  inner  world  and  her 
mother's,  who  could  not  breathe  a  syllable  of  that  world's  history 
to  any  living  soul! 

Rosalind  acknowledged  to  herself  now  how  great  the  relief  had 
been  when,  during  the  few  hours  that  passed  between  her  com- 
munication to  her  old  friend  on  his  deathbed  and  the  last  state 
of  insensibility  from  which  he  never  rallied,  there  had  actually 
been  on  this  earth  one  other  than  herself  who  knew  all  her  story 
and  its  strange  outcome.  For  those  few  hours  she  had  not  been 
alone,  and  the  memory  of  it  helped  her  to  bear  her  present  loneli- 
ness. She  could  hear  again,  when  she  woke  in  the  stillness  of  the 
night,  the  voice  of  the  old  man,  a  whisper  struggling  through  his 
half -choked  respiration,  that  said  again  and  again:  "Oh,  Rosey 
darling!  can  it  be  true?  Thank  God!  thank  God!"  And  the 
fact  that  what  she  had  then  feared  had  never  come  to  pass — the 
fact  that,  contrary  to  her  expectations,  he  had  been  strangely  able 
to  look  the  wonder  in  the  face,  and  never  flinch  from  it,  seeing 
nothing  in  it  but  a  priceless  boon — this  fact  seemed  to  give  her 
now  the  fortitude  to  bear  without  help  the  burden  of  her  know!- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  309 

edge — the  knowledge  of  who  he  was,  this  man  that  was  beside  her 
in  the  stillness,  this  man  whose  steady  breathing  she  could  hear, 
whose  heart-beats  she  could  count.  And  her  heart  dwelt  on  the 
old  soldier's  last  wotds,  strangely,  almost  incredibly,  resonant,  a 
hard- won  victory  in  his  dying  fight  for  speech,  "Evil  has  turned  to 
good.  God  be  praised!"  It  had  almost  seemed  as  if  the  parting 
soul,  on  the  verge  of  the  strangest  chance  man  has  to  face,  lost  all 
measure  of  the  strangeness  of  any  earthly  thing,  and  was  sensible 
of  nothing  but  the  wonderment  of  the  great  cause  of  all. 

But  one  thing  that  she  knew  (and  could  not  explain)  was 
that  this  secret  knowledge,  burdensome  in  itself,  relieved  the  op- 
pression of  one  still  more  burdensome,  and  helped  her  to  drive 
it  from  her  thoughts.  We  speak  of  the  collision  of  the  record 
in  her  mind  of  what  her  daughter  was,  and  whence,  with  the  fact 
that  Sally  was  winding  herself  more  and  more,  daughterwise, 
round  the  heart  of  the  man  whose  bond  with  her  mother  she, 
small  and  unconscious,  had  had  so  large  a  share  in  rending 
asunder  twenty  years  ago.  It  was  to  her,  in  its  victory  over  crude 
physical  fact,  even  while  it  oppressed  her,  a  bewildering  triumph 
of  spirit  over  matter,  of  soul  over  sense,  this  firm  consolidating 
growth  of  an  affection  such  as  Nature  means,  but  often  fails  to 
reach,  between  child  and  parent.  And  as  it  grew  and  grew,  her 
child's  actual  paternity  shrank  and  dwindled,  until  it  might 
easily  have  been  held  a  matter  for  laughter,  but  for  the  black 
cloud  of  Devildom  that  hung  about  it,  and  stamped  her  as  the  in- 
fant of  a  Nativity  in  the  Venusberg,  whose  growing  after-life  had 
gone  far  to  shroud  the  horror  of  its  lurid  caverns  with  a  veil  of 
oblivion. 

We  say  all  these  things  quite  seriously  of  our  Sally,  in  spite 
of  her  incorrigible  slanginess  and  vulgarity.  We  can  now  go  on 
to  St.  Sennans-on-Sea,  where  we  shall  find  her  in  full  blow,  but 
very  sticky  with  the  salt  water  she  passes  really  too  much  of  her 
time  in,  even  for  a  merpussy. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

ST.  SENNANS-ON-SEA.  MISS  GWENDOLEN  ARKWRIGHT.  WOULD  ANY 
OTHER  CHILD  HAVE  BEEN  SALLY?  HOW  MRS.  IGGULDEN's  COUSIN 
SOLOMON  SURRENDERED  HIS  COUCH 

ST.  SENNANS-ON-SEA  consists  of  two  parts — the  new  and  the 
old.  The  old  part  is  a  dear  little  old  place,  and  the  new  part  is 
beastly.  So  Sally  says,  and  she  must  know,  because  this  is  her 
third  visit. 

The  old  part  consists  of  Mrs.  Iggulden's  and  the  houses  we 
have  described  on  either  side  of  her,  and  maybe  two  dozen  more 
wooden  or  black-brick  dwellings  of  the  same  sort;  also  of  the 
beach  and  its  interesting  lines  of  breakwater  that  are  so  very 
jolly  to  jump  off  or  to  lie  down  and  read  novels  under  in  the 
sea  smell.  Only  not  too  near  the  drains,  if  you  know  it.  If 
you  don't  know  it,  it  doesn't  matter  so  much,  because  the  smell 
reminds  you  of  the  seaside,  and  seems  right  and  fitting.  You 
must  take  care  how  you  jump,  though,  off  these  breakwaters, 
because  where  they  are  not  washed  inconceivably  clean,  and  all 
their  edges  smoothed  away  beyond  belief  by  the  tides  that  come 
and  go  for  ever,  they  are  slippery  with  green  sea-ribbons  that 
cling  close  to  them,  and  green  sea-fringes  that  cling  closer  still, 
and  brown  sea-ramifications  that  are  studded  with  pods  that  pop 
if  you  tread  on  them,  but  are  not  quite  so  slippery;  only  you  may 
just  as  well  be  careful,  even  with  them.  And  we  should  recom- 
mend you,  before  you  jump,  to  be  sure  you  are  not  hooked  over 
a  bolt,  not  merely  because  you  may  get  caught,  and  fall  over  a 
secluded  reading-public  on  the  other  side,  but  because  the  red 
rust  comes  off  on  you  and  soils  your  white  petticoat. 

If  you  don't  mind  jumping  off  these  breakwaters — and  it 
really  is  rather  a  lark — you  may  tramp  along  the  sea  front  quite 
near  up  to  where  the  fishing-luggers  lie,  each  with  a  capstan  all 
to  itself,  under  the  little  extra  old  town  the  red-tanned  fishing- 
nets  live  in,  in  houses  that  are  like  sailless  windmill-tops  whose 

310 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  311 

plank  walls  have  almost  merged  their  outlines  in  innumerable 
coats  of  tar,  laid  by  long  generations  back  of  the  forefathers  of 
the  men  in  oil-cloth  head-and-shoulder  hats  who  repair  their  nets 
for  ever  in  the  Channel  wind,  unless  you  want  a  boat  to-day, 
in  which  case  they  will  scull  you  about,  while  you  absolutely 
ache  sympathetically  with  their  efforts,  of  which  they  them- 
selves remain  serenely  unaware,  till  you've  been  out  long  enough. 
Then  they  beach  you  cleverly  on  the  top  of  a  wave,  and  their 
family  circle  seizes  you,  boat  and  all,  and  runs  you  up  the  shingle 
before  the  following  wave  can  catch  you  and  splash  you,  which 
it  wants  to  do. 

There  is  an  aroma  of  the  Norman  Conquest  and  of  Domesday 
Book  about  the  old  town.  Research  will  soon  find  out,  if  she 
looks  sharp,  that  there  is  nothing  Norman  in  the  place  except 
the  old  arch  in  the  amorphous  church-tower,  and  a  castle  at  a 
distance  on  the  flats.  But  the  flavour  of  the  past  is  stronger  in 
the  scattered  memories  of  bygone  sea-battles  not  a  century  ago, 
and  the  names  of  streets  that  do  not  antedate  the  Georges,  than 
in  these  mere  scraps  that  are  always  open  to  the  reproach  of 
mediaevalism,  and  are  separated  from  us  by  a  great  gulf.  And  it 
doesn't  much  matter  to  us  whether  the  memories  are  of  victory  or 
defeat,  or  the  names  those  of  sweeps  or  heroes.  All's  one  to  us — 
we  glow;  perhaps  rashly,  for,  you  see,  we  really  know  very  little 
about  them.  And  he  who  has  read  no  history  to  speak  of,  if  he 
glows  about  the  past  on  the  strength  of  his  imperfect  data,  may 
easily  break  his  molasses-jug. 

So,  whether  our  blood  is  stirred  by  Nelson  and  Trafalgar, 
whereof  we  have  read,  or  by  the  Duke  of  York  and  Walcheren, 
whereof  we  haven't — or  mighty  little — we  feel  in  touch  with 
both  these  heroes,  for  they  are  modern.  Both  have  columns,  any- 
how; and  we  can  dwell  upon  their  triumph  or  defeat  almost  as  if 
it  wasn't  history  at  all,  but  something  that  really  happened,  with- 
out running  any  risk  of  being  accused  of  archaism  or  of  decipher- 
ing musty  tomes.  And  we  can  enjoy  our  expedition  all  the  same 
to  the  ruined  keep  in  the  level  pastures,  where  the  long-horned 
black  cattle  stand  and  think  and  flap  their  tails  still,  just  as  they 
did  in  the  days  when  the  basement  dungeons,  now  choked  up, 
held  real  prisoners  with  real  broken  hearts. 

But  there  is  modern  life,  too,  at  St.  Sennans — institutions  that 


312  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

keep  abreast  of  the  century.  Half  the  previous  century  ago, 
when  we  went  there  first,  the  Circulating  Library  consisted,  so 
far  as  we  can  recollect  it,  of  a  net  containing  bright  leather  balls, 
a  collection  of  wooden  spades  and  wheelbarrows,  a  glass  jar  with 
powder-puffs,  another  with  tooth-brushes,  a  rocking-horse — rashly 
stocked  in  the  first  heated  impulse  of  an  over-confident  founder — 
a  few  other  trifles,  and,  most  important  of  all,  a  book-case  that 
supplied  the  title-role  to  the  performance*  That  book-case  con- 
tained (we  are  confident)  editiones  principes  of  Mrs.  Katcliff, 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  Bulwer  Lytton,  Currer  Bell  .  .  .  well,  even 
Fanny  Burney,  if  you  come  to  that.  There  certainly  was  a  copy 
of  "Frankenstein,"  and  fifty  years  ago  our  flesh  was  so  compliant 
as  to  creep  during  its  perusal.  It  wouldn't  now. 

But  even  fifty  years  ago  there  was  never  a  volume  that  had 
not  been  defaced  out  of  all  knowledge  by  crooked  marks  of  the 
most  inquisitive  interrogation,  and  straight  marks  of  the  most 
indignant  astonishment,  by  the  reading-public  in  the  shadows  of 
the  breakwaters.  It  really  read,  that  public  did;  and,  what's 
more,  it  often  tore  out  the  interesting  bits  to  take  away.  I 
remember  great  exasperation  when  a  sudden  veil  was  drawn  over 
the  future  of  two  lovers  just  as  the  young  gentleman  had  flung 
himself  into  the  arms  of  the  young  lady.  An  unhallowed  fiend 
had  cut  off  the  sequel  with  scissors  and  boned  it! 

That  was  done,  or  much  of  it,  when  the  books  were  new,  and 
the  railway-station  was  miles  away;  when  the  church  wasn't 
new,  but  old,  which  was  better.  It  has  been  made  new  since, 
and  has  chairs  in  it,  and  memorial  windows  by  Stick  and  Co. 
In  those  days  its  Sunday-folk  were  fisherfolk  mostly,  and  a  few 
local  magnates  or  parvates — squirophants,  they  might  be  called 
— and  a  percentage  of  the  visitors. 

Was  St.  Sennan  glad  or  sorry,  we  wonder,  when  the  last  two 
sorts  subscribed  and  restored  him?  If  we  had  been  he,  one  of 
us  would  have  had  to  have  the  temper  of  a  saint  to  keep  cool 
about  it.  Anyhow,  it's  done  now,  and  can't  be  undone. 

But  the  bathing-machines  are  not  restored,  at  any  rate.  Those 
indescribables  yonder,  half  rabbit-hutch,  half  dry-dock — a  long 
row  for  ladies  and  a  short  one  for  gentlemen,  three  hundred  yards 
apart — couldn't  trust  'em  any  nearer,  bless  you! — these  super- 
annuated God-knows-whats,  struggling  against  disintegration 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  313 

from  automatic  plunges  down  a  rugged  beach,  and  creaking  jour- 
neys back  you  are  asked  to  hold  on  through — it's  no  use  going 
on  drying! — these  tributes  to  public  decorum  you  can  find  no 
room  in,  and  probably  swear  at — no  sacrilegious  restorer  has 
laid  his  hand  on  these.  They  evidently  contemplate  going  on 
for  ever;  for  though  their  axes  grow  more  and  more  oblique  every 
day,  their  self-confidence  remains  unshaken.  But  then  they 
think  they  are  St.  Sennans,  and  that  the  wooden  houses  are 
subordinate  accidents,  and  the  church  a  mere  tributary  that  was 
a  little  premature — got  there  first,  in  its  hurry  to  show  respect 
for  them.  And  no  great  wonder,  seeing  what  a  figure  they  cut, 
seen  from  a  boat  when  you  have  a  row!  Or,  rather,  used  to 
cut;  for  now  the  new  town  (which  is  beastly)  has  come  on  the 
cliff  above,  and  looks  for  all  the  world  as  if  it  was  St.  Sennans, 
and  speaks  contemptuously  of  the  real  town  as  the  Beach  Houses. 

The  new  town  can  only  be  described  as  a  tidy  nightmare;  yet 
it  is  a  successful  creation  of  the  brains  that  conceived  it — a  suc- 
cessful creation  of  ground-rents.  As  a  development  of  land  ripe 
for  building,  with  more  yards  of  frontage  to  the  main-road  than 
at  first  sight  geometry  seems  able  to  accommodate,  it  has  been 
taking  advantage  of  unrivalled  opportunities  for  a  quarter  of 
a  century,  backed  by  advances  on  mortgage.  It  is  the  envy  of 
the  neighbouring  proprietors  east  and  west  along  the  coast,  who 
have  developed  their  own  eligible  sites  past  all  remedy  and  our 
endurance,  and  now  have  to  drain  their  purses  to  meet  the 
obligations  to  the  professional  mortgagee,  who  is  biding  his  hour 
in  peace,  waiting  for  the  fruit  to  fall  into  his  mouth  and  mur- 
derously sure  of  his  prey.  But  at  St.  Sennans  a  mysterious 
silence  reigns  behind  a  local  office  that  yields  keys  on  application, 
and  answers  all  inquiries,  and  asks  ridiculous  rents.  And  this 
silence,  or  its  keeper,  is  said  to  have  become  enormously  rich 
over  the  new  town. 

The  shareholders  in  the  St.  Sennans  Hotel,  Limited,  cannot 
have  become  rich.  If  they  had,  surely  they  would  provide  some- 
thing better  for  a  hungry  paying  supplicant  than  a  scorched 
greasy  chop,  inflamed  at  the  core,  and  glass  bottles  containing  a 
little  pellucid  liquid  that  parts  with  its  carbon  dioxide  before 
you  can  effect  a  compromise  with  the  cork,  which  pushes  in, 
but  not  so  as  to  attain  its  ideal.  So  your  Seltzer  water  doesn't 


314  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

pour  fast  enough  to  fizz  outside  the  bottle,  and  your  heart  is 
sad.  Of  course,  you  can  have  wine,  if  you  come  to  that,  for 
look  at  the  wine-list!  Only  the  company's  ideas  of  the  value  of 
wine  are  not  limited,  and  if  you  decide  not  to  be  sordid,  and 
order  a  three-shilling  bottle  of  Medoc,  you  will  find  its  contents 
to  be  very  limited  indeed.  But  why  say  more  than  that  it  is 
an  enormous  hotel  at  the  seaside?  You  know  all  about  them, 
and  what  it  feels  like  in  rainy  weather,  when  the  fat  gentleman 
has  got  to-day's  "Times,"  and  means  to  read  all  through  the 
advertisement-column  before  he  gives  up  the  leaders,  and  you 
have  to  spend  your  time  turning  over  thick  and  shiny  snap-shot 
journals  with  a  surfeit  of  pictures  in  them;  or  the  Eeal  Lady, 
or  the  Ladylike  Lady,  or  the  Titled  Lady,  the  portraits  of  whom 
— one  or  other  of  them — sweep  in  curves  about  their  folio  pages; 
and,  while  they  fascinate  3rou,  make  you  feel  that  you  would 
falter  on  the  threshold  of  matrimony  if  only  because  they  couldn't 
possibly  take  nourishment.  Would  not  the  discomfort  of  meals 
eaten  with  a  companion  who  could  swallow  nothing  justify  a 
divorce  a  mensa  ? 

A  six-shilling  volume  might  be  written  about  the  New  Hotel, 
with  an  execration  on  every  page.  Don't  let  us  have  anything 
to  do  with  it,  but  keep  as  much  as  possible  at  the  Sea  Houses 
under  the  cliff,  which  constitute  the  only  St.  Sennans  necessary 
to  this  story.  We  shall  be  able  to  do  so,  because  when  Mrs.  and 
Mr.  Fenwick  and  their  daughter  went  for  a  walk  they  always 
went  up  the  cliff -path  way,  which  had  steps  cut  in  the  chalk,  past 
the  boat  upside  down,  where  new-laid  eggs  could  be  bought  from 
a  coastguard's  wife.  And  this  path  avoided  the  New  Town 
altogether,  and  took  them  straight  to  the  cliff-track  that  skirted 
growing  wheat  and  blazing  poppies  till  you  began  to  climb  the 
smooth  hill-pasture  the  foolish  wheat  had  encroached  upon  in 
the  Protection  days,  when  it  was  worth  more  than  South  Down 
mutton.  And  now  every  ear  of  it  would  have  been  repenting 
in  sackcloth  and  ashes  if  it  had  been  qualified  by  Nature  to 
know  how  little  it  would  fetch  per  bushel.  But  it  wasn't.  And 
when,  the  day  after  their  arrival,  Eosalind  and  her  husband  were 
on  the  beach  talking  of  taking  a  walk  up  that  way  when  Sally 
came  out,  it  could  have  heard,  if  it  would  only  have  stood  still, 
the  sheep-bells  on  the  slopes  above  reproaching  it,  and  taunting 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  315 

it  with  its  usurpation  and  its  fruitless  end.  Perhaps  it  was 
because  it  felt  ashamed  that  it  stooped  before  the  wind  that 
carried  the  reproachful  music,  and  drowned  it  in  a  silvery  rustle. 
The  barley  succeeded  the  best.  You  listen  to  the  next  July 
barley-field  you  happen  on,  and  hear  what  it  can  do  when  a  breeze 
comes  with  no  noise  of  its  own. 

Down  below  on  the  shingle  the  sun  was  hot,  and  the  tide  was 
high,  and  the  water  was  clear  and  green  close  to  the  shore,  and 
jelly-fish  abounded.  You  could  look  down  into  the  green  from 
the  last  steep  ridge  at  high-water  mark,  and  if  you  looked  sharp 
you  might  see  one  abound.  Only  you  had  to  be  on  the  alert  to 
jump  back  if  a  heave  of  the  green  transparency  surged  across 
the  little  pebbles  that  could  gobble  it  up  before  it  was  all  over 
your  feet— but  didn't  this  time.  Oh  dear! — how  hot  it  was! 
Sally  had  the  best  of  it.  For  the  allusion  to  Sally's  "coming  out" 
referred  to  her  coming  out  of  the  water,  and  she  was  staying  in 
a  long  time. 

"That  child's  been  twenty-four  minutes  already,"  said  her 
mother,  consulting  her  watch.  "Just  look  at  her  out  there  on 
the  horizon.  What  on  earth  are  they  doing?" 

It  was  a  little  inexplicable.  At  that  moment  Sally  and  her 
friend — it  was  one  Fraulein  Braun,  who  had  learned  swimming  in 
the  baths  on  the  Rhone  at  Geneva  and  in  Paris — appeared  to  be 
nothing  but  two  heads,  one  close  behind  the  other,  moving  slowly 
on  the  water.  Then  the  heads  parted  company,  and  apparently 
their  owners  lay  on  their  backs  in  the  water,  and  kicked  up  the 
British  Channel. 

"They're  saving  each  other's  lives,"  said  Gerry.  He  got  up 
from  a  nice  intaglio  he  had  made  to  lie  in,  and  after  shaking  off 
a  good  bushel  of  small  pebbles  a  new-made  beach-acquaintance  of 
four  had  heaped  upon  him,  resorted  to  a  double  opera-glass  to 
see  them  better.  "The  kitten  wanted  me  to  get  out  of  my  depth 
for  her  to  tow  me  in.  But  I  didn't  fancy  it.  Besides,  a  sensitive 
British  public  would  have  been  scandalised." 

"You  never  learned  to  swim,  then,  Gerry ?"  She  just 

stopped  herself  in  time.  The  words  "after  all"  were  on  her  lips. 
Without  them  her  speech  was  mere  chat;  with  them  it  would 
have  been  a  match  to  a  mine.  She  sometimes  wished  in  these 
days  that  the  mine  might  explode  of  itself,  and  give  her  peace. 


316  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"I  suppose  I  never  did,"  replied  her  husband,  as  a  matter  of 
course.  "At  least,  I  couldn't  do  it  when  I  tried  in  the  water  just 
now.  I  should  imagine  I  must  have  tried  B.C.,  or  I  shouldn't 
have  known  how  to  try.  It's  not  a  thing  one  forgets,  so  they 
say."  He  paused  a  few  seconds,  and  then  added:  "Anyhow,  it's 
quite  certain  I  couldn't  do  it."  There  was  not  a  trace  of  con- 
sciousness on  his  part  of  anything  in  her  mind  beyond  what  her 
words  implied.  But  she  felt  in  peril  of  fire,  so  close  to  him,  with 
a  resurrection  of  an  image  in  it — a  vivid  one — of  the  lawn-tennis 
garden  of  twenty  years  ago,  and  the  speech  of  his  friend,  the  real 
Fenwick,  about  his  inability  to  swim. 

This  sense  of  peril  did  not  diminish  as  he  continued:  "I've 
found  out  a  lot  of  things  I  can  do  in  the  way  of  athletics,  though; 
I  seem  to  know  how  to  wrestle,  which  is  very  funny.  I  wonder 
where  I  learned.  And  you  saw  how  I  could  ride  at  Sir  Mount- 
massingham's  last  month?"  This  referred  to  a  country  visit, 
which  has  not  come  into  our  story.  "And  that  was  very  funny 
about  the  boxing.  Such  a  peaceful  old  fogey  as  your  husband! 
Wasn't  it,  Eosey  darling?" 

"Why  won't  you  call  the  Bart,  by  his  proper  name,  Gerry? 
Wasn't  what?" 

"Funny  about  the  gloves.  You  know  that  square  fellow? 
He  was  a  well-known  prizefighter  that  young  Sales  Wilson  had 
picked  up  and  brought  down  to  teach  the  boys.  You  remember 
him?  He  went  to  church,  and  was  very  devout.  .  .  ." 

"I  remember." 

"Well,  it  was  in  the  billiard-room,  after  dinner.  He  said  quite 
suddenly,  'This  gentleman  now  can  make  use  of  his  daddies.  I 
can  see  it  in  him' — meaning  me.  'What  makes  you  think  that, 
Mr.  Macmorrough?'  said  I.  'We  of  the  fancy,  sir,'  says  he,  'see 
these  things,  without  referrin'  to  no  books,  by  the  light  of 
Nature.'  And  next  day  we  had  a  set-to  with  the  gloves,  and  his 
verdict  was  'Only  just  short  of  professional.'  Those  boys  were 
delighted.  I  wonder  how  and  when  I  became  such  a  dab 
at  it?" 

"I  wonder!"  Rosalind  doesn't  seem  keen  on  the  subject.  "I 
wish  those  crazy  girls  would  begin  to  think  of  coming  in.  If 
it's  going  to  be  like  this  every  day  I  shall  go  home  to  London, 
Gerry." 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  317 

"Perhaps  when  Vereker  comes  down  on  Monday  he'll  be  able 
to  influence.  Medical  authority!" 

Here  the  beach-acquaintance,  who  had  kept  up  a  musical  un- 
dercurrent of  disjointed  comment,  perceived  an  opportunity  for 
joining  more  actively  in  the  conversation. 

"My  mum  mar  says — my  mummar  says — my  mummar 
says  .  .  ." 

"Yes — little  pet — what  does  she  say?"    Thus  Rosalind. 

"Yes — Miss  Gwendolen  Arkwright — what  does  she  say?" 
Thus  Fenwick,  on  whom  Miss  Arkwright  is  seated. 

"My  mummar  says  se  wissus  us  not  to  paggle  Tundy  when  the 
tideses  goed  out.  But  my  mummar  says — my  mumrnar 
says  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  darling." 

"My  mummar  says  we  must  paggle  Monday  up  to  here."  Miss 
Arkwright  indicates  the  exact  high-water  mark  sanctioned, 
candidly.  "Wiv  no  sooze,  and  no  stottins!"  She  then  becomes 
diffuse.  "And  my  bid  sister  Totey's  doll  came  out  in  my  bed, 
and  Dane  dusted  her  out  wiv  a  duster.  And  I  can  do  thums. 
And  they  make  free  .  .  ."  At  this  point  Miss  Arkwright's  copy 
runs  short,  and  she  seizes  the  opportunity  for  a  sort  of  seated 
dance  of  satisfaction  at  her  own  eloquence — a  kind  of  subjective 
horsemanship. 

"I  wish  I  never  had  to  do  any  sums  that  made  more  than 
three,"  is  the  putative  horse's  comment.  "But  there  are  only 
two  possible,  alas!  And  the  totals  are  stale,  as  you  might  say." 

"I'm  afraid  my  little  girl's  being  troublesome."  Thus  the 
mamma,  looking  round  a  huge  groin  of  breakwater  a  few  yards 
off. 

"Troublesome,  madame?"  exclaims  Fenwick,  using  French  un- 
expectedly. "She's  the  best  company  in  Sussex."  But  Miss 
Arkwright's  nurse  Jane  domineers  into  the  peaceful  circle  with 
a  clairvoyance  that  Miss  Gwendolen  is  giving  trouble,  and  bears 
her  away  rebellious. 

"What  a  shame!"  says  Gerry  sotto  voce.  "But  I  wonder  why  I 
said  'madame'!" 

"I  remember  you  said  it  once  before."  And  she  means  to  add 
"the  first  time  you  saw  me,"  but  dubs  it,  in  thought,  a  needless 
lie,  and  substitutes,  "that  day  when  you  were  electrocuted."  And 


318  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

then  imagines  she  has  flinched,  and  adds  her  original  text  boldly. 
She  isn't  sorry  when  her  husband  merely  says,  "That  was 
queer  too!"  and  remains  looking  through  his  telescope  at  the 
swimmers. 

"They're  coming  at  last — a  couple  of  young  monkeys!"  is  her 
comment.  And,  sure  enough,  after  a  very  short  spell  of  stylish 
sidestrokes  Sally's  voice  and  laugh  are  within  hearing  ahead  of  her 
companion's  more  guttural  intonation.  Her  mother  draws  a 
long  breath  of  relief  as  the  merpussy  vanishes  under  her  awning, 
and  is  shouted  and  tapped  at  to  hold  tight,  while  capstan-power 
tugs  and  strains  to  bring  her  dressing-room  up  a  sharp  slope  out 
of  reach  of  the  sea. 

"Well,  Jeremiah,  and  what  have  you  got  to  say  for  yourself?" 
said  the  merpussy  soon  after,  just  out  of  her  machine,  with  a  huge 
mass  of  briny  black  hair  spread  out  to  dry.  The  tails  had  to  be 
split  and  sorted  and  shaken  out  at  intervals  to  give  the  air  a 
chance.  Sally  was  blue  and  sticky  all  over,  and  her  finger-tips 
and  nails  all  one  colour.  But  her  spirits  were  boisterous. 

"What  about?" 

"What  about,  indeed?  About  not  coming  into  the  water  to  be 
pulled  out.  You  promised  you  would,  you  know  you  did!" 

"I  did;  but  subject  to  a  reasonable  interpretation  of  the  com- 
pact. I  should  have  been  out  of  my  depth  ever  so  long  before 
you  could  reach  me.  Why  didn't  you  come  closer?" 

"How  could  I,  with  a  fat,  pink  party  drying  himself  next 
door?  You  wouldn't  have,  if  it  had  been  you,  and  him  Goody 
Vereker.  .  .  ." 

"Sal-ly!     Darling!"    Her  mother  remonstrates. 

"We-ell,  there's  nothing  in  that!  As  if  we  didn't  all  know 
what  the  Goody  would  look  like.  .  .  ." 

Rosalind  is  really  afraid  that  the  strict  mamma  of  her  hus- 
band's recent  incubus  will  overhear,  and  sit  at  another  breakwater 
next  day.  "Come  along!"  she  says,  dispersively  and  emphatically. 
"We  shall  have  the  shoulder  of  mutton  spoiled." 

"No,  we  shan't!  Shall  we,  Jeremiah?  We've  talked  it  over, 
me  and  Jeremiah.  Haven't  we,  Gaffer  Fen  wick?"  She  is  split- 
ting up  the  salt  congestions  of  his  mane  as  she  sits  by  him  on  the 
shingle.  He  confirms  her  statement. 

"We  have.     And  we  have  decided  that  if  we  are  two  hours 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  319 

late  it  may  be  done  enough.  But  that  in  any  case  the  so-called 
gravy  will  be  grey  hot  water." 

"Get  up  and  come  along,  and  don't  be  a  mad  kitten!  I  shall 
go  and  leave  you  two  behind.  So  now  you  know."  And  Kosa- 
lind  goes  away  up  the  shingle. 

"What  makes  mother  look  so  serious  sometimes,  kitten?  She 
did  just  now." 

"She's  jealous  of  you  and  me  flirting  like  we  do.  Don't  put 
your  hat  on;  let  the  sun  dry  you  up  a  bit.  Does  she  really  look 
serious  though?  Do  you  mean  it?" 

"Yes,  I  mean  it.  It  comes  and  goes.  But  when  I  ask  her 
she  only  laughs  at  me."  A  painful  thought  crosses  Sally's  mind. 
Is  it  possible  that  some  of  her  reckless  escapades  have  froisse'd  her 
mother?  She  goes  off  into  a  moment's  contemplation,  then  sud- 
denly jumps  up  with,  "Come  along,  Jeremiah,"  and  follows  her 
up  the  beach. 

But  the  gravity  on  the  face  of  the  latter,  by  now  half-way 
to  the  house,  had  nothing  to  do  with  any  of  Sally's  shocking 
vulgarities  and  outrageous  utterances.  No,  nor  even  with  the 
green-eyed  monster  Jealousy  her  unscrupulous  effrontery  had  not 
hesitated  to  impute.  She  allowed  it  to  dominate  her  expression, 
as  there  was  no  one  there  to  see,  until  the  girl  overtook  her. 
Then  she  wrenched  her  face  and  her  thoughts  apart  with  a  smile. 
"You  are  a  mad  little  goose,"  said  she. 

But  the  thing  that  weighted  her  mind — oppressed  or  puzzled 
her,  as  might  be — what  was  it? 

Had  she  been  obliged  to  answer  the  question  off-hand  she  her- 
self might  have  been  at  a  loss  to  word  it,  though  she  knew  quite 
well  what  it  was.  It  was  the  old  clash  between  the  cause  of 
Sally  and  its  result.  It  was  the  thought  that,  but  for  a  memory 
that  every  year  seemed  to  call  for  a  stronger  forgetfulness,  a 
more  effective  oblivion,  this  little  warm  star  that  had  shone  upon 
and  thawed  a  frozen  life,  this  salve  for  the  wound  it  sprang 
from,  would  have  remained  unborn — a  nonentity!  Yes,  she 
might  have  had  another  child — true!  But  would  that  child  have 
been  Sally? 

She  was  so  engrossed  with  her  husband,  and  he  with  her,  that 
she  felt  she  could,  as  it  were,  have  trusted  him  with  his  own 
identity.  But,  then,  how  about  Sally?  Though  she  might  with 


320  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

time  show  him  the  need  for  concealment,  how  be  sure  that  nothing 
should  come  out  in  the  very  confusion  of  the  springing  of  the 
mine?  She  could  trust  him  with  his  identity — yes!  Not  Sally 
with  hers.  Her  great  surpassing  terror  was — do  you  see? — not 
the  effect  on  him  of  learning  about  Sally's  strange  provenance, 
but  for  Sally  herself.  The  terrible  knowledge  she  could  not 
grasp  the  facts  without  would  cast  a  shadow  over  her  whole 
life. 

So  she  thought  and  turned  and  looked  down  on  the  beach. 
There  below  her  was  this  unsolved  mystery  sitting  in  the  sun 
beside  the  man  whose  life  it  had  rent  asunder  from  its  mother's 
twenty  years  ago.  And  as  Eosalind  looked  at  her  she  saw  her 
capture  and  detain  his  hat.  "To  let  his  mane  dry,  I  suppose," 
said  Rosalind.  "I  hope  he  won't  get  a  sunstroke."  She  watched 
them  coming  up  the  shingle,  and  decided  that  they  were  going 
on  like  a  couple  of  school-children.  They  were,  rather. 

Perhaps  the  image  in  Sally's  profane  mind  of  "hers  affec- 
tionately, Rebecca  Vereker,"  before  or  after  an  elderly  bathe, 
would  not  have  appeared  there  if  she  had  not  received  that  morn- 
ing a  letter  so  signed,  announcing  that,  subject  to  a  variety  of 
fulfilments — among  which  the  Will  of  God  had  quite  a  con- 
spicuous place — she  and  her  son  would  make  their  appearance 
next  Monday,  as  our  text  has  already  hinted.  On  which  day 
the  immature  legs  of  Miss  Gwendolen  Arkwright  were  to  be  re- 
leased from  a  seclusion  by  which  some  religious  object,  unde- 
fined, had  been  attained  the  day  before. 

But  the  conditions  which  had  to  be  complied  with  by  the 
lodgings  it  would  be  possible  for  this  lady  to  occupy  were  such 
as  have  rarely  been  complied  with,  even  in  houses  built  specially 
to  meet  their  requirements.  Each  window  had  to  confront,  not 
a  particular  quarter,  but  a  particular  ninetieth,  of  the  compass. 
A  full  view  of  the  sea  had  to  be  achieved  from  a  sitting-room  not 
exposed  to  its  glare,  an  attribute  destructive  of  human  eyesight, 
and  fraught  with  curious  effects  on  the  nerves.  But  the  bed- 
rooms had  to  look  in  directions  foreign  to  human  experience — 
directions  from  which  no  wind  ever  came  at  night.  A  house  of 
which  every  story  rotated  on  an  independent  vertical  axis  might 
have*  answered — nothing  else  would.  Even  then  space  would. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  321 

have  called  for  modification,  and  astronomy  and  meteorology 
would  have  had  to  be  patched  up.  Then  with  regard  to  the 
different  levels  of  the  floors,  concession  was  implied  to  "a  flat"; 
but,  stairways  granted,  the  risers  were  to  be  at  zero,  and  the  treads 
at  boiling-point — a  strained  simile!  As  to  cookery,  the  services 
of  a  chef  with  great  powers  of  self-subordination  seemed  to  be 
pointed  at,  a  cordon-bleu  ready  to  work  in  harness.  Hygienic 
precautions,  such  as  might  have  been  insisted  on  by  an  Atha- 
nasian  sanitary  inspector  on  the  premises  of  an  Arian  house- 
holder, were  made  a  sine  qua  non.  Freedom  from  vibration  from 
vehicles  was  so  firmly  stipulated  for  that  nothing  short  of  a 
balloon  from  Shepherd's  Bush  could  possibly  have  met  the  case. 
The  only  relaxation  in  favour  of  the  possible  was  a  diseased  readi- 
ness to  accept  shakedowns,  sandwiches  standing,  cuts  off  the  cold 
mutton,  and  snacks  generally  on  behalf  of  her  son. 

Mrs.  Iggulden,  who  was  empty  both  sets  on  Monday,  didn't 
answer  in  any  one  particular  to  any  of  these  requisitions.  But  a 
spirit  of  overgrown  compromise  crept  in,  making  a  sufficient 
number  of  reasons  why  no  one  of  them  could  be  complied  with 
an  equivalent  of  compliance  itself.  Only  in  respect  of  certain 
racks  and  tortures  for  the  doctor  was  Mrs.  Iggulden  induced  to 
lend  herself  to  dangerous  innovation.  "I  can't  have  poor  Prosy 
put  to  sleep  in  a  bed  like  this,"  said  Sally,  punching  in  the  centre 
of  one,  and  finding  a  hideous  cross-bar.  Either  Mrs.  Iggulden's 
nephew  must  saw  it  out,  and  tighten  up  the  sacking  from  end 
to  end,  or  she  must  get  a  Christian* bed.  Poor  Prosy!  Whereon 
Mrs.  Iggulden  explained  that  her  nephew  had  by  an  act  of  self- 
sacrifice  surrendered  this  bed  as  a  luxury  for  lodgers  in  the 
season,  having  himself  a  strong  congenital  love  of  bisection.  He 
hadn't  slept  nigh  so  sound  two  months  past,  and  the  crossbar 
would  soothe  his  slumbers. 

So  it  was  finally  settled  that  the  Goody  and  her  son  should 
come  to  Iggulden's.  The  question  of  which  set  she  should  occupy 
being  left  open  until  she  should  have  inspected  the  stairs. 
Thereon  Mrs.  Iggulden's  nephew,  whose  name  was  Solomon,  con- 
trived a  chair  to  carry  the  good  lady  up  them;  which  she,  though 
faint,  declined  to  avail  herself  of  when  she  arrived,  perhaps  seeing 
her  way  to  greater  embarrassment  for  her  species  by  being  sup- 
ported slowly  upstairs  with  a  gasp  at  each  step,  and  a  moan  at 


322  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

intervals.     However,  she  was  got  up  in  the  end,  and  thought  she 
could  take  a  little  milk  with  a  teaspoonful  of  brandy  in  it. 

But  as  to  giving  any  conception  of  the  difficulties  that  arose 
at  this  point  in  determining  the  choice  between  above  and  below, 
that  must  be  left  to  your  imagination.  A  conclusion  was  arrived 
at  in  time — in  a  great  deal  of  it — and  the  Goody  was  actually 
settled  on  the  ground  floor  at  Mrs.  Iggulden's,  and  contriving  to 
battle  against  collapse  from  exhaustion  with  an  implication  that 
she  had  no  personal  interest  in  reviving,  but  would  do  it  for  the 
sake  of  others. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

HOW  SALLY  PUT  THE  FINISHING  TOUCH  ON  THE  DOCTOR,  WHO  COULDN'T 
SLEEP.  OF  THE  GRAND  DUKE  OF  HESSE-JUNKERSTADT.  AND  OF  AN 
INTERVIEW  OVERHEARD 

FENWICK  was  not  a  witness  of  this  advent,  as  the  Monday  on 
which  it  happened  had  seen  his  return  to  town.  He  had  had 
his  preliminary  week,  and  his  desk  was  crying  aloud  for  him. 
He  departed,  renewing  a  solemn  promise  to  write  every  day  as 
the  train  came  into  the  little  station  at  Egbert's  Eoad,  for  St. 
Sennans  and  Growborough.  It  is  only  a  single  line,  even  now, 
to  St.  Sennans  from  here,  but  as  soon  as  it  was  done  it  was  good- 
bye to  all  peace  and  quiet  for  St.  Sennan. 

Rosalind  and  her  daughter  came  back  in  the  omnibus — not 
the  one  for  the  hotel,  but  the  one  usually  spoken  of  as  Padlock's — 
the  one  that  lived  at  the  Admiral  Collingwood,  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  an  inn  in  the  old  town.  The  word  "omnibus"  applied 
to  it  was  not  meant  literally  by  Padlock,  but  only  as  a  declaration 
of  his  indifference  as  to  which  four  of  the  planet's  teeming 
millions  rode  in  it.  This  time  there  was  no  one  else  except  a 
nice  old  farmer's  wife,  who  spoke  to  each  of  the  ladies  as  "my 
dear,"  and  of  each  of  them  as  "your  sister."  Rosalind  was  look- 
ing wonderfully  young  and  handsome,  certainly.  They  secured 
all  the  old  lady's  new-laid  eggs,  because  there  would  be  Mrs. 
Vereker  in  the  evening.  We  like  adhering  to  these  ellipses  of 
daily  life. 

Next  morning  Sally  took  Dr.  Vereker  for  a  walk  round  to 
show  him  the  place.  Try  to  fancy  the  condition  of  a  young  man 
of  about  thirty,  who  had  scarcely  taken  his  hand  from  the  plough 
of  general  practice  for  four  years — for  his  holidays  had  been 
mighty  insignificant — suddenly  inaugurating  three  weeks  of 
paradise  in  the  society  man  most  covets — of  delicious  seclusion 
remote  from  patients,  a  happy  valley  where  stethoscopes  might 
be  forgotten,  and  carbolic  acid  was  unknown,  where  diagnosis 

823 


324  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ceased  from  troubling,  and  prognosis  was  at  rest.  He  got  so 
intoxicated  with  Sally  that  he  quite  forgot  to  care  if  the  cases  he 
had  left  to  Mr.  Neckitt  (who  had  been  secured  as  a  substitute 
after  all)  survived  or  got  terminated  fatally.  Bother  them  and 
their  moist  rales  and  cardiac  symptoms,  and  effusions  of  blood 
on  the  brain! 

Dr.  Conrad  was  a  young  man  of  an  honest  and  credulous 
nature,  with  a  turn  for  music  naturally,  and  an  artificial  bias 
towards  medicine  infused  into  him  by  his  father,  who  had  died 
while  he  was  yet  a  boy.  His  honesty  had  shown  itself  in  the 
loyalty  with  which  he  carried  out  his  father's  wishes,  and  his  cre- 
dulity in  the  readiness  with  which  he  accepted  his  mother's  self- 
interested  versions  of  his  duty  towards  herself.  She  had  given 
him  to  understand  from  his  earliest  years  that  she  was  an  unselfish 
person,  and  entitled  to  be  ministered  unto,  and  that  it  was  the 
business  of  every  one  else  to  see  that  she  did  not  become  the 
victim  of  her  own  self-sacrifice.  At  the  date  of  this  writing  her 
son  was  passing  through  a  stage  of  perplexity  about  his  duty 
to  her  in  its  relation  to  his  possible  duty  to  a  wife  undefined. 
That  he  might  not  be  embarrassed  by  too  many  puzzles  at  once, 
he  waived  the  question  of  who  this  wife  was  to  be,  and  ignored  the 
fact  that  would  have  been  palpable  to  any  true  reading  of  his 
mind,  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  Miss  Sally  Nightingale  this 
perplexity  might  never  have  existed.  He  satisfied  his  conscience 
on  the  point  by  a  pretext  that  Sally  was  a  thing  on  a  pinnacle 
out  of  his  reach — not  for  the  likes  of  him!  He  made  believe  that 
he  was  at  a  loss  to  find  a  foothold  on  his  greasy  pole,  but  was 
seeking  one  in  complete  ignorance  of  what  would  be  found  at  the 
top  of  it. 

This  shallow  piece  of  self-deception  was  ripe  for  disillusion- 
ment when  Sally  took  its  victim  out  for  a  walk  round  to  show  him 
the  place.  It  had  the  feeblest  hold  on  existence  during  the  re- 
mainder of  the  day,  throughout  which"  our  medical  friend  went 
on  dram-drinking,  knowing  the  dangers  of  his  nectar-draughts, 
but  as  helpless  against  them  as  any  other  dram-drinker.  It  broke 
down  completely  and  finally  between  moonrise  and  midnight — 
a  period  that  began  with  Sally  calling  under  Iggulden's  window, 
"Come  out,  Dr.  Conrad,  and  see  the  phosphorescence  in  the  water; 
it's  going  to  be  quite  bright  presently/'  and  ended  with,  "Good 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  325 

gracious,  how  late  it  is!  Shan't  we  catch  it?"  an  exclamation 
both  contributed  to.  For  it  was  certainly  past  eleven  o'clock. 

But  in  that  little  space  it  had  broken  down,  that  delusion; 
and  the  doctor  knew  perfectly  well,  before  ten  o'clock,  certainly, 
that  all  the  abstract  possible  wives  of  his  perplexity  meant  Sally, 
and  Sally  only.  And,  further,  that  Sally  was  at  every  point  of 
the  compass — that  she  was  in  the  phosphorescence  of  the  sea,  and 
the  still  golden  colour  of  the  rising  moon.  That  space  was  full 
of  her,  and  that  each  little  wave-splash  at  their  feet  said  "Sally," 
and  then  gave  place  to  another  that  said  "Sally"  again.  Poor 
Prosy! 

But  what  did  they  say,  the  two  of  them?  Little  enough — 
mere  merry  chat.  But  on  his  part  so  rigid  a  self-constraint  un- 
derlying it  that  we  are  not  sure  some  of  the  little  waves  didn't 
say — not  Sally  at  all,  but — Miss  Nightingale!  And  a  persistent 
sense  of  a  thought  that  was  only  waiting  to  be  thought  as  soon 
as  he  should  be  alone — that  was  going  to  run  somewhat  thus: 
"How  could  it  come  about?  That  this  girl,  whom  I  idolize  till 
my  idolatry  is  almost  pain;  this  girl  who  has  been  my  universe 
this  year  past,  though  I  would  not  confess  it;  this  wonder  whom 
I  judge  no  man  worthy  of,  myself  least  of  all — that  she  should  be 
cancelled,  made  naught  of,  hushed  down,  to  be  the  mate  of  a  poor 
G.P.;  to  visit  his  patients  and  leave  cards,  make  up  his  little 
accounts,  perhaps!  Certainly  to  live  with  his  mother.  .  .  ." 
But  he  knew  under  the  skin  that  he  would  be  even  with  that 
disloyal  thought,  and  would  stop  it  off  at  this  point  in  time  to 
believe  he  hadn't  thought  it. 

Still,  for  all  that  this  disturbing  serpent  would  creep  into  his 
Eden,  for  all  that  he  would  have  given  worlds  to  dare  a  little 
more — that  moment  in  the  moonlight,  with  a  glow-flecked 
water  at  his  feet  and  hers,  and  the  musical  shingle  below,  and  a 
sense  of  Christy  Minstrels  singing  about  Billy  Pattison  some- 
where in  the  warm  night-air  above,  and  the  flash  of  the  great 
revolving  light  along  the  coast  answering  the  French  lights  across 
the  great,  dark  silent  sea — that  moment  was  the  record  moment 
of  his  life  till  then.  It  would  never  do  to  say  so  to  Sally,  that 
was  all!  But  it  was  true  for  all  that.  For  his  life  had  been  a 
dull  one,  and  the  only  comfort  he  could  get  out  of  the  story  of  it 
so  far  was  that  at  least  there  was  no  black  page  in  it  he  would 


326  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

like  to  cut  out.  Sally  might  read  them  all,  and  welcome.  Their 
relation  to  her  had  become  the  point  to  consider.  You  see,  at 
heart  he  was  a  slow-coach,  a  milksop,  nothing  of  the  man  of  the 
world  about  him.  Well,  her  race  had  had  a  dose  of  the  other 
sort  in  the  last  generation.  Had  the  breed  wearied  of  it?  Was 
that  Sally's  unconscious  reason  for  liking  him? 

"How  very  young  Prosy  has  got  all  of  a  sudden!"  was  Sally's 
postscript  to  this  interview,  as  she  walked  back  to  their  own 
lodgings  with  her  mother,  who  had  been  relieving  guard  with  the 
selfless  one  while  the  doctor  went  out  to  see  the  phosphores- 
cence. 

"He's  like  a  boy  out  for  a  holiday,"  her  mother  answered.  "I 
had  no  idea  Dr.  Conrad  could  manage  such  a  colour  as  that;  I 
thought  he  was  pallid  and  studious." 

"Poor  dear.  We  should  be  pallid  and  studious  if  it  was  cases 
all  day  long,  and  his  ma  at  intervals." 

"Do  you  know,  kitten  darling,  I  can't  help  thinking  perhaps 
we  do  that  poor  woman  an  injustice.  .  .  ." 

" — Can't  you?"    Thus  Sally  in  a  parenthetic  voice — 

"...  and  that  she  really  isn't  such  a  very  great  humbug 
after  all!" 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  she  would  be  such  a  very  great  humbug,  don't  you 
see,  chick?" 

"Why  shouldn't  she?  Somebody  must,  or  there'd  be  no  such 
thing." 

"Why  should  there  be  any  such  thing?" 

"Because  of  the  word.  Somebody  must,  or  there'd  be  no  one 
to  hook  it  to.  ...  Have  they  stopped,  I  wonder,  or  are  they 
going  to  begin  again?"  This  referred  to  the  Ethiopian  banjos 
afar.  "I  do  declare  they're  going  to  sing  Pesky  Jane,  and  it's 
nearly  twelve  o'clock!" 

"Never  mind  them!  How  came  you  to  know  all  the  vulgar 
nigger-songs?  ...  I  was  going  to  say.  It's  very  difficult  to 
believe  it's  quite  all  humbug  when  one  hears  her  talk  about  her 
son  and  his  welfare,  and  his  prospects  and  .  .  ." 

"I  know  what  she  talked  about.  When  her  dear  son  marries, 
she's  going  to  devote  herself  to  him  and  her  dear  daughter  that 
will  be.  Wasn't  that  it?" 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  327 

"Yes;  but  then  she  couldn't  say  more  than  that  all  she  had 
would  be  theirs,  and  she  would  take  her  to  her  bosom,  etcetera. 
Could  she?" 

"She'll  have  to  pull  a  long  way!"  The  vulgar  child's  mind 
has  flown  straight  to  the  Goody's  outline  in  profile.  She  is  quite 
incorrigible.  "But  wasn't  that  what  old  Mr.  Turveydrop  said, 
or  very  nearly?  Of  course,  one  has  to  consider  the  parties  and 
make  allowance." 

"Sallykin,  what  a  madcap  you  are !  You  don't  care  what  you 
say." 

"We-e-ell!  there's  nothing  in  that.  .  .  .  But  look  here, 
mammy  darling.  Did  that  good  woman  in  all  she  said  to-night — 
all  the  time  she  was  jawing — did  she  once  lose  sight  of  her 
meritorious  attitude?" 

"It  may  only  be  a  fac on  de  parler — a  sort  of  habit." 

"But  it  isn't.  Jeremiah  says  so.  We've  talked  it  over,  us 
two.  He  says  he  wouldn't  like  his  daughter — meaning  me — to 
marry  poor  Prosy,  because  of  the  Goody." 

"Are  you  sure  he  meant  you?     Did  you  ask  him?" 

"No,  because  I  wasn't  going  to  twit  Jeremiah  with  being  only 
step.  We  kept  it  dark  who  was  what.  But,  of  course,  he  meant 
me.  Like  a  submarine  telegraph."  Sally  stopped  a  moment  in 
gravity.  Then  she  said:  "Mother  dear!" 

"What,  kitten?" 

"What  a  pity  it  is  Jeremiah  is  only  step!  Just  think  how  nice 
if  he'd  been  real.  Now,  if  you'd  only  met  twenty  years 
sooner.  .  .  ." 

A  nettle  to  grasp  presented  itself — a  bad  one.  Rosalind  seized 
it  bodily.  "I  shouldn't  have  had  my  kitten,"  she  said. 

"I  see.  I  should  have  been  somebody  else.  But  that  wouldn't 
have  mattered  to  me." 

"It  would  have — to  me!"  But  this  is  the  most  she  can  do  in 
the  way  of  nettle-grasping.  She  is  glad  when  St.  Sennan,  from 
his  tower  with  the  undoubted  piece  of  Norman,  begins  to  count 
twelve,  and  gives  her  an  excuse  for  a  recall  to  duty.  "Do  think 
how  we're  keeping  poor  Mrs.  Lobjoit  up,  you  unfeeling  child!" 
is  her  appeal  on  behalf  of  their  own  fisherman's  wife.  Sally  is 
just  taking  note  of  a  finale  of  the  Ethiop  choir.  "They've  done 
Pesky  Jane,  and  they're  going  away  to  bed,"  she  says.  "How  the 


328  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

black  must  come  off  on  the  sheets!"  And  then  they  hurried  home 
to  sleep  sound. 

But  there  was  little  sleep  for  the  doctor  that  night,  perhaps 
because  he  had  got  so  young  all  of  a  sudden.  So  it  didn't  matter 
much  that  his  mother  countermanded  his  proposal  that  bed 
should  be  gone  to,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  so  late  now  that 
she  wouldn't  be  able  to  sleep  a  wink.  If  she  could  have  gone  an 
hour  ago  it  would  have  been  different.  Now  it  was  too  late. 
An  aggressive  submissiveness  was  utilized  by  the  good  lady  to  the 
end  of  his  discomfort  and  that  of  Mrs.  Iggulden,  who — perhaps 
from  some  memories  of  the  Norman  Conquest  hanging  about  the 
neighbourhood — would  never  go  to  bed  as  long  as  a  light  was 
burning  in  the  house. 

"It  is  very  strange  and  most  unusual,  I  know,"  she  continued 
saying  after  she  had  scarified  a  place  to  scratch  on.  "Your 
great-uncle  Everett  Gayler  did  not  scruple  to  call  it  phenomenal, 
and  that  when  I  was  the  merest  child.  After  eleven  no  sleep!" 
She  continued  her  knitting  with  tenacity  to  illustrate  her  wake- 
fulness.  "But  I  am  glad,  dear  Conrad,  that  you  forgot  about  me. 
You  were  in  pleasanter  society  than  your  old  mother's.  No  one 
shall  have  any  excuse  for  saying  I  am  a  burden  on  my  son.  No, 
my  dear  boy,  my  wish  is  that  you  shall  feel  free."  She  laid 
aside  the  knitting  needles,  and  folding  her  hands  across  the  out- 
line Sally  was  to  be  dragged  up,  or  along,  dropped  her  eyelids 
over  a  meek  glare,  and  sat  with  a  fixed,  submissive  undersmile 
slightly  turned  towards  her  son. 

"But  I  thought,  mother,  as  Mrs.  Fenwick  was  here  .  .  ." 
Slow,  slight,  acquiescent  nods  stopped  him;  they  were  enough 
to  derail  any  speech  except  the  multiplication-table  or  the  House- 
that- Jack-built!  But  she  waited  with  exemplary  patience  for 
certainty  that  the  train  had  stopped.  Then  spoke  as  one  that 
gives  a  commission  to  speech,  and  observes  its  execution  at  a 
distance.  Her  expression  remained  immutable.  "She  is  a  well- 
meaning  person,"  said  she. 

"I  didn't  know  how  late  it  was."  Poor  Dr.  Conrad  gives  up 
self-defence — climbs  down.  "The  time  ran  away."  It  had  done 
so,  there  was  no  doubt  about  that. 

"And  you  forgot  your  mother.  But  Mrs.  Fenwick  is  a  well- 
meaning  person.  We  will  say  no  more  about  it." 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  329 

Whereupon  her  son,  feeling  that  silence  is  golden,  said  nothing. 
But  he  went  and  kissed  her  for  all  that.  She  said  inscrutably: 
"You  might  have  kissed  me."  But  whether  she  was  or  wasn't 
referring  to  the  fact  that  she  had  succeeded  in  negotiating  his 
kiss  on  the  rim  of  her  spectacles,  Conrad  couldn't  tell.  Probably 
she  meant  he  might  have  kissed  her  before. 

There  was  no  doubt,  however,  about  her  intention  of  knitting 
till  past  one  in  the  morning.  She  did  it  enlarging  on  the  medical 
status  of  her  illustrious  uncle,  Dr.  Everett  Gayler,  who  had  just 
crept  into  the  conversation.  Her  son  wasn't  so  sorry  for  this  as 
Mrs.  Iggulden,  who  dozed  and  waked  with  starts,  on  principle, 
outside  in  the  passage  unseen.  He  could  stand  at  the  wide-open 
window,  and  hear  the  little  waves  plash  "Sally"  in  the  moon- 
light, and  the  counter-music  of  the  down-drawn  shingle  echo 
"Sally"  back.  Sometimes  the  pebbles  and  the  water  gave  place 
for  a  moment  to  the  tread  of  two  persistent  walkers  up  and  down 
— men  who  smoked  cigars,  and  became  a  little  audible  and  died 
again  at  every  time  of  passing. 

One  time  the  doctor  caught  a  rise  of  voice — though  they  did 
not  pass  so  very  near — that  said:  "My  idea  is  to  stay  here 
till  .  .  ." 

Then  at  the  next  turn  the  same  voice  grew  from  inaudibility 
to  ...  "So  I  arranged  with  the  parson  here  for  to-morrow,  and 
we  shall  get  .  .  ."  and  died  again.  At  this  moment  Dr.  Everett 
Gayler  was  at  the  climax  of  his  fame,  having  just  performed 
tracheotomy  on  the  Grand  Duke  of  Hesse-Junkerstadt,  and  been 
created  Knight-Commander  of  some  Order  whose  name  Mrs. 
Vereker  wasn't  sure  about. 

Next  time  the  men  returned,  the  same  voice  that  seemed  to 
do  all  the  talking  said:  ".  .  .  Expensive,  of  course,  but  she  hates 
the  idea  of  a  registry-office."  They  paused,  and  the  listener 
heard  that  the  other  voice  had  said  something  to  which  the  first 
replied:  "No,  not  Grundy.  But  she  had  some  friends  cooked  at 
one,  and  they  said  it  was  stuffy,  and  they  would  sooner  have  en- 
dured twenty  short  homilies.  .  .  ." 

A  wax  vesta  scratched,  blazed,  lighted  another  cigar,  and  the 
second  voice  said,  "Oh — ah!"  and  both  grew  inaudible  again. 

Dr.  Everett  Gayler  had  just  pronounced  the  Grand  Duchess's 
disease — they  were  an  afflicted  family — a  disease  his  narrator 


330  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

couldn't  pronounce  at  all.  Most  of  her  bones,  in  a  state  of 
necrosis,  had  been  skilfully  removed  by  the  time  the  smokers  had 
passed  back.  But  so  much  more  was  Dr.  Conrad  listening  to 
what  the  waves  said  to  the  shingle  and  the  shingle  answered  back, 
than  to  either  the  Grand  Duchess  or  the  registry-office,  that  it 
never  crossed  his  mind  whose  the  voice  was  who  lit  the  vesta. 
He  heard  it  say  good-night — its  owner  would  get  back  to  the 
hotel — and  the  other  make  due  response.  And  then  nothing  was 
left  but  the  coastguard. 

But  the  Grand  Duke's  family  were  not  quite  done  with.  It 
had  to  be  recorded  how  many  of  his  distinguished  ancestors  had 
suffered  from  Plica  polonica.  Still,  the  end  did  come  at  last, 
and  the  worthy  lady  thought  perhaps  if  she  could  lie  down  now 
she  might  drop  off.  So  Mrs.  Iggulden  got  her  release  and  slept. 

Dr.  Conrad  didn't,  not  a  wink.  The  whole  place  was  full  of 
Sally.  The  flashlight  at  intervals,  in  couplets,  seemed  to  say 
"Sally"  twice  when  it  came,  and  then  to  leave  a  blank  for  him 
to  think  about  her  in.  The  great  slow  steamer  far  out  to  sea 
showed  a  green  eye  of  jealousy  or  a  red  one  of  anger  because  it 
could  not  come  ashore  where  Sally  was,  but  had  perforce  to  go  on 
wherever  it  was  navigated.  The  millions  of  black  sea-elves — 
did  you  ever  discriminate  them? — that  the  slight  observer  fancies 
are  the  interstices  of  the  moonlight  on  the  water,  were  all  busy 
about  Sally,  though  it  was  hard  to  follow  their  movements.  And 
every  time  St.  Sennan  said  what  o'clock  it  was,  he  added,  "One 
hour  nearer  to  Sally  to-morrow!" 

Poor  Prosy! 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

OP    A    MARRIAGE    BY    SPECIAL    LICENCE.      ROSALIND'S    COMPARISONS.      OF 
THE  THREE  BRIDESMAIDS,  AND  HOW  THE  BRIDE  WAS  A  GOOD  SAILOR 

BUT  it  never  occurred  to  Dr.  Vereker  that  the  voice  of  the 
smoking  gentleman,  whose  "she"  knew  a  couple  that  had  been 
cooked  at  a  registry  office,  was  a  voice  quite  familiar  to  him. 
The  only  effect  it  had  on  his  Sally-dazed  mind  was  to  make  him 
wonder  four  hours  after  what  it  was  that  kept  putting  Julius 
Bradshaw  into  his  head.  If  a  brain-molecule  could  have  been 
found  not  preoccupied  with  Sally  he  might  have  been  able  to 
give  her  next  day  a  suggestive  hint  about  a  possibility  ahead. 
But  never  a  word  said  he  to  Sally;  and  when,  on  her  return  from 
bathing  the  following  morning,  Mrs.  Lobjoit,  the  fisherman's 
wife,  surprised  her  with  the  news -that  "the  young  lady"  had 
come  and  had  left  her  luggage,  but  would  be  back  in  half-an-hour, 
she  was  first  taken  aback,  and  thought  it  was  a  mistake  next. 
But  no — no  chance  of  that!  The  young  lady  had  asked  for 
Mrs.  Algernon  Fenwick,  or,  in  default,  for  Miss  Sally,  quite  dis- 
tinctly. She  hadn't  said  any  name,  but  there  was  a  gentleman 
with  her.  Mrs.  Lobjoit  seemed  to  imply  that  had  there  been  no 
gentleman  she  might  have  been  nameless.  Padlock's  omnibus 
they  came  in. 

So  Sally  went  on  being  taken  aback  where  she  had  left  off,  and 
was  still  pondering  over  the  phenomenon  when  her  mother  fol- 
lowed her  through  the  little  yard  paved  with  round  flints  bedded 
in  mortar — all  except  the  flower-beds,  which  were  in  this  case 
marigold-beds  and  fuschia-beds  and  tamarisk-shakedowns — and 
the  street  door  which  always  stood  open,  and  it  was  very  little  use 
ringing,  the  bell  being  broken.  But  you  could  pass  through,  and 
there  would  always  be  old  Mr.  Lobjoit  in  the  kitchen,  even  if  Mrs. 
Lobjoit  was  not  there  herself. 

"Why  not  look  on  the  boxes,  you  stupid  kitten?  There's  a 
name  on  them,  or  ought  to  be."  Thus  Rosalind,  after  facts  told. 

331 


332  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"What  a  thing  it  is  to  have  a  practical  maternal  parent!" 
Thus  Sally.  And  Mrs.  Lobjoit  put  on  record  with  an  amiable 
smile  that  that  is  what  she  kept  saying  to  Miss  Nightingale, 
"Why  not  look?"  Whereas  the  fact  is  Mrs.  Lobjoit  never  said 
anything  of  the  sort. 

"Here's  a  go!"  says  Sally,  who  gets  at  the  label-side  of  the 
trunk  first.  "If  it  isn't  Tishy!"  And  the  mother  and  daughter 
look  at  each  other's  faces,  each  watching  the  other's  theory  form- 
ing of  what  this  sudden  apparition  means. 

"What  do  you  think,  mother?" 

"What  do  you  think,  kitten?"  But  the  truth  is,  both  wanted 
time  to  know  what  to  think.  And  they  hadn't  got  much  for- 
warder with  the  solution  of  the  problem  when  a  light  was  thrown 
upon  it  by  the  sudden  apparition  of  Latitia  herself,  accompanied 
by  the  young  gentleman  whom  Sally  did  not  scruple  to  speak  of — 
but  not  in  his  presence — as  her  counter-jumper.  She  did  this, 
she  said,  to  "pay  Tishy  out"  for  what  she  had  said  about  him 
before  she  made  his  acquaintance. 

The  couple  were  in  a  mixed  state  of  exaltation  and  confusion — 
Tishy  half  laughing,  a  third  crying,  and  a  sixth  keeping  up  her 
dignity.  Both  were  saying  might  they  come  in,  and  doing  it 
without  waiting  for  an  answer. 

Rosalind's  remark  was  one  of  those  nonsequences  often  met 
with  in  real  life:  "There's  enough  lunch — or  we  can  send  out." 
Sally's  was:  "But  are  you  the  Julius  Bradshaws,  or  are  you  not? 
That's  what  I  want  to  know."  Sally  won't  be  trifled  with,  not 
she! 

"Well,  Sally  dear,  no, — we're  not — not  just  yet."  Tishy 
hesitates.  Julius  shows  firmness. 

"But  we  want  to  be  at  two  o'clock  this  afternoon,  if  you'll 
come.  .  .  ." 

"Both  of  us?" 

"Why — of  course,  both  of  you." 

"Then  Mrs.  Lobjoit  will  have  to  be  in  time  with  lunch."  It 
does  not  really  matter  who  were  the  speakers,  nor  what  the  share 
of  each  was  in  the  following  aggregate: 

"How  did  you  manage  to  get  it  arranged?"  "Why  now  f  Have 
you  quarrelled  with  your  mother?"  "How  long  can  you  be  away? 
I  hate  a  stingy  honeymoon!"  "You've  got  no  things."  "Do  you 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  333 

think  they'll  know  at  home  where  you  are?"  "Where  are  you 
going  afterwards?"  "What  do  you  think  your  father  will  say?" 
"What  I  want  to  know  is,  what  put  it  into  your  head  now,  more 
than  any  other  time?" 

Responses  to  the  whole  of  which,  much  at  random,  are  incor- 
porated in  what  follows:  "Julius  isn't  wanted  for  three  weeks." 
"I'm  sure  the  Professor's  on  our  side,  really."  "I  left  a  letter 
to  tell  them,  anyhow."  "Calais.  We  shan't  be  sick,  in  weather 
like  this.  We'll  cross  by  the  night  boat."  "I've  got  a  new  dress 
to  be  married  in,  and  a  new  umbrella — oh  yes,  and  other  things." 
"I'll  tell  you  the  whole  story,  Sally  dear,  as  soon  as  I've  had  time 
to  turn  round."  "No — not  quarrelled — at  least,  no  more  than 
usual."  "Special  licence,  of  course." 

What  time  Vereker,  who  had  been  to  the  post-office,  which 
sold  all  sorts  of  things,  to  inquire  if  they  had  a  packet  of  chemical 
oatmeal  (the  only  thing  his  mother  could  digest  this  morning), 
and  was  coming  back  baffled,  called  in  on  his  way  to  Mrs.  Iggul- 
den's.  Not  to  see  Sally,  but  only  to  take  counsel  with  the  family 
about  chemical  oatmeal.  By  a  curious  coincident,  the  moment 
he  heard  of  Miss  Sales  Wilson's  arrival,  he  used  Sally's  expres- 
sion, and  said  that  there  was  "a  go!"  Perhaps  there  was,  and 
that  accounted  for  it. 

"Here's  Dr.  Conrad — he'll  have  to  come  too."  Thus  Sally 
explicitly.  To  which  he  replied,  "All  right.  Where?"  Sally 
replied  with  gravity:  "To  see  these  two  married  by  special 
licence."  And  Julius  added:  "You  must  come,  doctor,  to  be  my 
bottle-holder." 

A  small  undercurrent  of  thought  in  the  doctor's  mind,  in  which 
he  can  still  accommodate  passing  events  and  the  world's  trivial- 
ities, begins  to  receive  impressions  of  the  facts  of  the  case.  The 
great  river  called  Sally  flows  steadily  on,  on  its  own  account, 
and  makes  and  meddles  not.  It  despises  other  folk's  petty 
affairs.  Dr.  Conrad  masters  the  position,  and  goes  on  to  draw 
inferences. 

"Then  that  must  have  been  you  last  night,  Bradshaw?" 

"I  dare  say  it  was.     When?" 

"Walking  up  and  down  with  another  fellow  in  front  here. 
Smoking  cigars,  both  of  you." 

"Why  didn't  you  sing  out?" 


334  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Well,  now — why  didn't  I?"  He  seems  a  little  unable  to  ac- 
count for  himself,  and  no  wonder.  "I  think  I  recollected  it  was 
like  you  after  you  had  gone." 

"Don't  be  a  brain-case,  Dr.  Conrad.  What  would  your  patients 
say  if  they  heard  you  go  on  like  that  ?"  Sally  said  this,  of  course. 
Her  mother  thought  to  herself  that  perhaps  the  patients  would 
send  for  a  married  doctor. 

But  her  mind  was  taking  no  strong  hold  on  the  current  of 
events,  considering  what  a  very  vital  human  interest  was  afloat 
on  them.  It  was  wandering  back  to  another  wedding-day — her 
own  first  wedding-day  of  twenty  years  ago.  As  she  looked  at 
this  bridegroom — all  his  upspring  of  hope  making  light  of  such 
fears  as  needs  must  be  in  like  case  all  the  world  over — he  brought 
back  to  her  vividly,  for  all  he  was  so  unlike  him,  the  face  of  the 
much  younger  man  who  had  met  her  that  day  at  Umballa,  whose 
utter  freedom  from  suspicion  as  he  welcomed  her  almost  made 
her  able  to  forget  the  weeks  gone  by — the  more  so  that  they  were 
like  a  dream  in  Hell,  and  their  sequel  like  an  awakening  in 
Paradise.  Well,  at  any  rate,  she  had  recaptured  this  man  from 
Chaos,  and  he  was  hers  again.  And  she  had  Sally.  But  at  the 
word  the  whole  world  reeled  and  her  feet  were  on  quicksands. 
What  and  whence  was  Sally? 

At  least  this  was  true — there  was  no  taint  of  her  father  there! 
Sally  wasn't  an  angel — not  a  bit  of  it — no  such  embarrassment 
to  a  merely  human  family.  But  her  mother  could  see  her  truth, 
honour,  purity — call  it  what  you  will — in  every  feature,  every 
movement.  As  she  stood  there,  giving  injunctions  to  Vereker 
to  look  alive  or  he'd  be  late,  her  huge  coil  of  sea-soaked  black  hair 
making  her  white  neck  look  whiter,  and  her  white  hands  re- 
establishing hair-pins  in  the  depths  of  it,  she  seemed  the  very 
incarnation  of  non-inheritance.  Not  a  trace  of  the  sire  her 
mother  shuddered  to  think  of  in  the  music  of  her  voice,  in  the 
laughter  all  who  knew  her  felt  in  the  mirth  of  her  eyebrows  and 
the  sparkle  of  her  pearly  teeth.  All  her  identity  was  her  own. 
If  only  it  could  have  been  known  then  that  she  was  going  to  be 
Sally!  .  .  .  But  how  fruitless  all  speculation  was! 

"Perhaps  mother  knows.  Chemical  oatmeal,  mother,  for 
invalids  and  persons  of  delicate  digestion?  They  haven't  got  it 
at  Pemberton's."  The  eyes  and  the  teeth  flash  round  on  her 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  335 

mother,  and  in  a  twinkling  the  unhallowed  shadow  of  the  past 
is  gone.  It  was  only  a  moment  in  all,  though  it  takes  more  to 
record  it.  Rosalind  came  back  to  the  life  of  the  present,  but  she 
knew  nothing  about  chemical  oatmeal.  Never  mind.  The  doc- 
tor would  find  out.  And  he  would  be  sure  to  be  in  time. 

He  was  in  time — plenty  of  time,  said  public  opinion.  And 
the  couple  were  duly  married,  and  went  away  in  Padlock's  omni- 
bus to  catch  the  train  for  Dover  in  time  for  the  boat.  And  Dr. 
Conrad's  eyes  were  on  the  eldest  bridesmaid.  For,  after  all, 
two  others  were  obtained — jury-bridesmaids  they  might  be  called 
— in  the  persons  of  Miss  Gwendolen  Arkwright  and  an  even 
smaller  sister,  who  were  somehow  commandeered  by  Sally's  en- 
terprise, and  bribed  with  promises  of  refreshment.  But  the 
smaller  sister  was  an  erring  sister,  for  having  been  told  she  was 
on  no  account  to  speak  during  the  service,  she  was  suddenly 
struck  with  the  unfairness  of  the  whole  thing,  and,  pointing  at 
St.  Sennans'  arch-priest,  said  very  audibly  that  he  was  "peatin'," 
so  why  wasn't  she  to  "peat"?  However,  it  was  a  very  good  wed- 
ding, and  there  was  no  doubt  the  principals  had  really  become 
the  Julius  Bradshaws.  They  started  from  Dover  on  a  sea  that 
looked  like  a  mill-pond;  but  Tishy's  husband  afterwards  reported 
that  the  bride  sat  with  her  eyes  shut  the  last  half  of  the  trajet, 
and  said,  "Don't  speak  to  me,  and  I  shall  be  all  right." 

That  summer  night  Rosalind  and  her  daughter  were  looking 
out  over  the  reputed  mill-pond  at  the  silver  dazzle  with  the  elves 
in  it.  The  moon  had  come  to  the  scratch  later  than  last  night, 
from  a  feeling  of  what  was  due  to  the  almanac,  which  may  (or 
must)  account  for  an  otherwise  enigmatical  remark  of  Sally's, 
who,  when  her  mother  wondered  what  time  it  was,  replied:  "I 
don't  know — it's  later  than  it  was  yesterday."  But  did  that 
matter,  when  it  was  the  sort  of  night  you  stopped  out  all  night 
on,  according  to  Sally.  They  came  to  an  anchor  on  a  seat  facing 
the  sea,  and  adjourned  human  obligation  sine  die. 

"I  wonder  if  they've  done  wisely."  Rosalind  represents 
married  thoughtfulness. 

Sally  shelves  misgivings  of  this  sort  by  reflections  on  the  com- 
mon lot  of  humanity,  and  considers  that  it  will  be  the  same  for 
them  as  every  one  else. 


336  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"They'll  be  all  right,"  she  says,  with  cheerful  optimism.  "I 
wonder  what's  become  of  Prosy." 

"He's  up  there  with  his  mother.  I  saw  him  at  the  window. 
But  I  didn't  mean  that:  they'll  be  happy  enough  together,  I've 
no  doubt.  I  mean,  has  Laetitia  done  wisely  to  quarrel  with  her 
family?" 

"She  hasn't ;  it's  only  the  she-dragon.  Tishy  told  me  all  about 
it  going  to  church." 

And,  oh  dear,  how  poor  Prosy,  who  was  up  there  with  his 
mother,  did  long  to  come  out  to  the  voices  he  could  hear  plain 
enough,  even  as  far  off  as  that!  But  then  he  had  been  so  long 
away  to-day,  and  he  knew  his  excellent  parent  always  liked  to 
finish  the  tale  of  her  own  wedding-day  when  she  began  it — as  she 
often  did.  So  he  listened  again  to  the  story  of  the  wedding, 
which  was  celebrated  in  the  severest  thunderstorm  experienced 
in  these  islands  since  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  by  a  heroic 
clergyman  who  was  suffering  from  pleuro-pneumonia,  which 
made  his  voice  inaudible  till  a  miraculous  chance  produced  one 
of  Squilby's  cough  lozenges  (which  are  not  to  be  had  now  for 
love  or  money),  and  cured  him  on  the  spot.  And  how  the  brides- 
maids all  had  mumps,  more  or  less.  And  much  concerning  the 
amazingly  dignified  appearance  of  her  own  father  and  mother, 
which  was  proverbial,  and  therefore  no  matter  of  surprise  to  any 
one,  the  proverb  being  no  doubt  well  known  to  Europe. 

But  there,  it  didn't  matter!     Sally  would  be  there  to-morrow. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

HOW  A  FORTNIGHT  PASSED,  AND  THE  HONEYMOONERS  RETURNED.  OF  A 
CHAT  ON  THE  BEACH,  AND  MISS  ARKWRIGHT's  SCIENTIFIC  EXPERI- 
ENCE. ALMOST  THE  LAST,  LAST,  LAST — MAN'S  HEAD! 

SALLY  to-morrow — and  to-morrow — and  to-morrow.  Sally 
for  fourteen  morrows.  And  the  moon  that  had  lighted  the  de- 
voted young  man  to  his  fate — whatever  it  was  to  be — had  waned 
and  left  the  sky  clear  for  a  new  one,  on  no  account  to  be  seen 
through  glass. 

They  were  morrows  of  inextinguishable,  indescribable  delight 
for  their  victims  or  victim — for  how  shall  we  classify  Sally? 
Who  shall  tread  the  inner  temple  of  a  girl's  mind?  How  shall  it 
be  known  that  she  herself  has  the  key  to  the  Holy  of  Holies? — 
that  she  is  not  dwelling  in  the  outer  court,  unconscious  of  her 
function  of  priestess,  its  privileges  and  responsibilities?  Or,  in 
plainer  language,  metaphors  having  been  blowed  in  obedience  to 
a  probable  wish  of  the  reader's,  how  do  we  know  Sally  was  not 
falling  in  love  with  the  doctor?  How  do  we  know  she  was  not  in 
love  with  him  already?  How  did  she  know? 

All  we  know  is  that  the  morrows  went  on,  each  one  sweeter 
than  the  last,  and  all  the  little  incidents  went  on  that  were  such 
nothings  at  the  time,  but  were  so  sure  to  be  borne  in  mind  for 
ever !  You  know  all  about  it,  you  who  read.  Like  enough  you 
can  remember  now,  old  as  you  are,  how  you  and  she  (or  he, 
according  as  your  sex  is)  got  lost  in  the  wood,  and  never  found 
where  the  picnic  had  come  to  an  anchor  till  all  the  wings  of 
chicken  were  gone  and  only  legs  left;  or  how  there  was  a  bull 
somewhere;  or  how  next  day  the  cat  got  caught  on  the  shoulder 
of  one  of  you  and  had  to  be  detached,  hooking  horribly,  by  the 
other;  or  how  you  felt  hurt  (not  jealous,  but  hurt)  because  she 
(or  he)  was  decently  civil  to  some  new  he  (or  she),  and  how  re- 
lieved you  were  when  you  heard  it  was  Mr.  or  Mrs.  Some-name- 
you've-f orgotten.  Why,  if  you  were  to  ask  now,  of  that  grey  man 

837 


338  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

or  woman  whose  life  was  linked  with  yours,  maybe  now  sixty 
years  agone,  did  he  or  she  have  a  drumstick,  or  go  on  to  ham- 
sandwiches? — or,  was  it  really  a  bull,  after  all? — or,  had  that 
cat's  claws  passed  out  of  memory? — or,  what  was  the  name  of 
that  lady  (or  gentleman)  at  the  So-and-so's? — if  you  asked  any 
of  these  things,  she  or  he  might  want  a  repeat  into  a  deaf  ear 
but  would  answer  clear  enough  in  the  end,  and  recall  the  drum- 
sticks and  the  equivocal  bull,  the  cat's  claws,  and  the  unequivocal 
married  person.  And  then  you  would  turn  over  all  the  little 
things  of  old,  and  wrangle  a  bit  over  details  here  and  there;  and 
all  the  while  you  would  be  the  very  selfsame  two  that  were  young 
and  were  lost  in  the  wood  and  trampled  down  the  fern  and  saw 
the  squirrels  overhead  all  those  long  years  ago. 

Many  a  little  thing  of  a  like  nature — perhaps  some  identical — 
made  up  hours  that  became  days  in  that  fortnight  we  have  to 
skip,  and  then  the  end  was  drawing  near;  and  Dr.  Conrad  would 
have  to  go  back  and  write  prescriptions  with  nothing  that  could 
possibly  do  any  harm  in  them,  and  abstain  with  difficulty  from 
telling  young  ladies  with  cultivated  waists  they  were  liars  when 
they  said  you  could  get  a  loaf  of  bread  between  all  round,  and  it 
was  sheer  nonsense.  And  other  little  enjoyments  of  a  G.P.'s 
life.  Yes,  the  end  was  very  near.  But  Sally's  resolute  optimism 
thrust  regrets  for  the  coming  chill  aside,  and  decided  to  be  jolly 
while  we  could,  and  acted  up  to  its  decision. 

Besides,  an  exciting  variation  gave  an  interest  to  the  last  week 
of  the  doctor's  stay  at  St.  Sennans.  The  wandering  honey- 
mooners,  in  gratitude  to  that  saint,  proposed  to  pay  him  a  visit 
on  their  way  back  to  London.  Perhaps  they  would  stop  a  week. 
So  the  smallest  possible  accommodation  worthy  of  the  name  was 
found  for  them  over  a  brandyball  and  bull's-eye  shop  in  a  house 
that  had  no  back  rooms,  being  laid  like  a  vertical  plaster  against 
the  cliff  behind,  and  having  an  exit  on  a  flat  roof  where  you 
might  bask  in  the  sun  and  see  the  bright  red  poppies  growing 
in  the  chalk,  and  contribute  your  share  towards  a  settlement  of 
the  vexed  question  of  which  are  brigs.  There  wasn't  another 
room  to  be  had  in  the  real  St.  Sennans,  and  it  came  to  that  or  the 
hotel  (which  was  beastly),  and  you  might  just  as  well  be  in  Lon- 
don. Thus  Sally,  and  settled  the  question. 

And  this  is  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  at  the  beginning  of  this 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  339 

chapter — which  we  have  only  just  got  to,  after  all  this  circum- 
locution!— Sally  and  one  of  the  Julius  Bradshaws  were  sitting 
talking  on  the  beach  in  the  shadow  of  a  breakwater,  while  the 
other  Julius  Bradshaw  (the  original  one)  was  being  taken  for  a 
walk  to  the  extremely  white  lighthouse  three  miles  off,  or  nearly 
five  if  you  went  by  the  road,  by  Dr.  Conrad,  who  by  this  time 
knew  all  the  walks  in  the  neighbourhood  exactly  as  well  as 
Sally  did,  neither  more  nor  less.  .  And  both  knew  them  very 
well. 

The  tide  had  come  up  quite  as  far  as  it  had  contemplated,  and 
seemed  to  have  made  up  its  mind  this  time  not  to  go  back  in 
too  great  a  hurry.  It  was  so  nice  there  on  the  beach,  with  Tishy 
and  Sally  and  Miss  Gwendolen  Arkwright,  the  late  bridesmaid, 
who  was  having  an  independent  chat  all  to  herself  about  the 
many  glories  of  the  pier-end,  and  the  sights  to  be  seen  there  by 
visitors  for  a  penny.  And  it — we  are  speaking  of  the  tide' — had 
got  a  delightful  tangle  of  floating  weed  (Fucus  Vesiculosus)  and 
well-washed  scraps  of  wood  from  long-forgotten  wrecks — who 
knows? — and  was  turning  it  gently  to  and  fro,  and  over  and 
over,  with  intermittent  musical  caresses,  against  the  shingle- 
bank,  whose  counter-music  spoke  to  the  sea  of  the  ages  it  had 
toiled  in  vain  to  grind  it  down  to  sand.  And  the  tide  said,  wait, 
we  shall  see.  The  day  will  come,  it  said,  when  not  a  pebble  of 
you  all  but  shall  be  scattered  drifting  sand,  unless  you  have  the 
luck  to  be  carted  up  at  a  shilling  a  load  by  permission  of  the 
authorities,  to  be  made  into  a  concrete  of  a  proper  consistency 
according  to  the  local  by-laws.  But  the  pebbles  said,  please,  no; 
we  will  bide  our  time  down  here,  and  you  shall  have  us  for  your 
own — play  with  us  in  the  sun  at  the  feet  of  these  two  ladies,  or 
make  the  whirling  shoals  of  us,  beaten  to  madness,  thunder  back 
your  voice  when  it  shouts  in  the  storm  to  the  seaman's  wife,  who 
stops  her  ears  in  the  dark  night  alone  that  she  may  not  hear  you 
heralding  her  husband's  death.  And  the  tide  said  very  good; 
but  a  day  would  come  when  the  pebbles  would  be  sand,  for  all 
that.  And  even  the  authority  would  be  gone,  and  the  local  by- 
laws. But  it  would  sound  upon  some  shore  for  ever.  So  it  kept 
on  saying.  Probably  it  was  mistaken. 

This  has  nothing  to  do  with  our  story  except  that  it  is  ap- 
proximately the  substance  of  a  statement  made  by  Sally  to  Miss 


340  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Arkwright,  who  was  interested,  and  had  been  promised  it  all  over 
again  to-morrow.  For  the  present  she  could  talk  about  the  pier 
and  take  her  audience  for  granted. 

"But  was  it  that  Kensington  Gardens  business  that  did  the 
job?"  asked  Sally,  in  the  shadow  of  the  breakwater,  getting  the 
black  hair  dry  after  three-quarters  of  an  hour  in  the  sea;  because 
caps,  you  know,  are  all  nonsense  as  far  as  keeping  water  out  goes. 
So  Sally  had  to  sit  ever  so  long  with  it  out  to  dry.  And  the  very 
tiny  pebbles  you  can  almost  see  into  stick  to  your  hands,  as  you 
know,  and  come  off  in  your  hair  when  you  run  them  through  it, 
and  have  to  be  combed  out.  At  least,  Sally's  had.  But  she  kept 
on  running  the  pebbles  through  her  still  blue  fingers  for  all  that 
as  she  half  lay,  half  sat  by  Tishy  on  the  beach. 

"  'Did  the  job!' "  repeats  the  bride  on  her  honeymoon  with 
some  indignation.  "Sally  dear,  when  will  you  learn  to  be  more 
refined  in  your  ways  of  speech?  I'm  not  a  precieuse,  but — 'did 
the  job!'  Eeally,  Sally!  .  .  ." 

"Observe  the  effect  of  three  weeks  in  France.  The  Julius 
Bradshaws  can  parlay  like  anything!  No,  Tishy  darling,  don't 
be  a  stack-upper,  but  tell  me  again  about  Kensington  Gardens." 

"I  told  you.  It  was  just  like  that.  Julius  and  I  were  walking 
up  the  avenue — you  know.  .  .  ." 

"The  one  that  goes  up  and  across,  and  comes  straight  like 
this?"  Tishy,  helped  by  a  demonstration  of  blue  finger-tips, 
recognises  this,  strange  to  say. 

"No,  not  that  one.  It  doesn't  matter.  We  didn't  see  mamma 
coming  till  she  was  ever  so  close,  because  of  the  Speke  Monument 
in  the  way.  And  what  could  possess  her  to  come  home  that  way 
from  Hertford  Street,  Mayfair,  I  cannot  imagine!" 

"Never  mind,  Tishy  dear!  It's  no  use  crying  over  spilled 
milk.  What  did  she  say?" 

"Nothing,  dear.  She  turned  purple,  and  bowed  civilly.  To 
Julius,  of  course.  But  it  included  me,  whether  or  no." 

"But  was  that  what  did  the  job?  .  .  .  We-ell,  I  do  not  see 
anything  to  object  to  in  that  expression.  Was  it?" 

"If  you  mean,  dear,  was  it  that  that  made  us,  me  and  Julius, 
feel  that  matters  would  get  no  better  by  waiting,  I  think  perhaps 
it  was.  .  .  .  Well,  when  it  comes  to  meeting  one's  mother  in 
Kensington  Gardens,  near  the  Speke  Monument,  and  being  bowed 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  341 

civilly  to,  it  seems  to  me  it's  high  time.  .  .  .  Now,  isn't  it, 
Sally?" 

Sally  evaded  giving  testimony  by  raising  other  questions: 
"What  did  your  father  say?"  "Did  the  Dragon  tell  him  about 
the  meeting  in  the  park?"  "What  do  you  think  he'll  say  now?" 

"Now?  Well,  you  know,  I've  got  his  letter.  He's  all  right — 
and  rather  dear,  /  think.  What  do  you  think,  Sally?" 

"I  think  very." 

"Perhaps  I  should  say  very.  But  with  papa  you  never  know. 
He  really  does  love  us  all,  after  a  fashion,  except  Egerton,  only 
I'm  never  sure  he  doesn't  do  it  to  contradict  mamma." 

"Why  don't  they  chuck  each  other  and  have  done  with  it?" 
The  vulgar  child  lets  fly  straight  into  the  bull's-eye;  then  adds 
thoughtfully:  "/  should,  only,  then,  I'm  not  a  married  couple." 

Tishy  elided  the  absurd  figure  of  speech  and  ignored  it.  The 
chance  of  patronising  was  not  to  be  lost. 

"You  are  not  married,  dear.  When  you  are,  you  may  feel 
tilings  differently.  But,  of  course,  papa  and  mamma  are  very 
odd.  I  used  to  hear  them  through  my  door  between  the  rooms 
at  L.B.G.  Road.  It  was  wrangle,  wrangle,  wrangle;  fight,  fight, 
fight;  all  through  the  night — till  two  o'clock  sometimes.  Oh 
dear!" 

"You're  sure  they  always  were  quarrelling?" 

"Oh  dear,  yes.  I  used  to  catch  all  the  regular  words — settle- 
ment and  principal  and  prevaricate.  All  that  sort  of  thing,  you 
know.  But  there  they  are,  and  there  they'll  be  ten  years  hence, 
that's  my  belief,  living  together,  sleeping  together,  and  dining  at 
opposite  ends  of  the  same  table,  and  never  communicating  in  the 
daytime  except  through  me  or  Theeny,  but  quarrelling  like  cat 
and  dog." 

"What  shall  you  do  when  you  go  back?    Go  straight  there?" 

"I  think  so.  Julius  thinks  so.  After  all,  papa's  the  master 
of  the  house — legally,  at  any  rate." 

"Shall  you  write  and  say  you're  coming?" 

"Oh,  no!  Just  go  and  take  our  chance.  We  shan't  be  any 
nearer  if  we  give  mamma  an  opportunity  of  miffing  away  some- 
where when  we  come.  What  is  that  little  maid  talking  about 
there?"  The  ex-bridesmaid  is  three  or  four  yards  away,  and  is 
discoursing  eloquently,  a  word  in  the  above  conversation  having 


342  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

reminded  her  of  a  tragic  event  she  has  mentioned  before  in  this 
story.  "I  seeps  with  my  bid  sister  Totey's  dolly,"  is  what  she 
appears  to  be  saying. 

"Never  mind  the  little  poppet,  Tishy,  till  you've  told  me  more 
about  it."  Sally  is  full  of  curiosity.  "Did  that  do  the  job  or 
did  it  not?  That's  what  I  want  to  know." 

"I  suppose  it  did,  dear,  indirectly.  That  was  on  Saturday 
afternoon.  Next  morning  we  breakfasted  under  a  thundercloud 
with  Egerton  grinning  inside  his  skin,  and  looking  like  'Won't 
you  catch  it,  that's  all!'  at  me  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye.  That 
was  bad  enough,  without  one's  married  sister  up  from  the  country 
taking  one  aside  to  say  that  she  wasn't  going  to  interfere,  and 
calling  one  to  witness  that  she  had  said  nothing  so  far.  All  she 
said  was,  'Me  and  mamma  settle  it  between  us.'  'Settle  what?' 
said  I;  and  she  didn't  answer,  and  went  away  to  the  first 
celebration." 

"She's  not  bad,  your  married  sister,"  Sally  decided  thought- 
fully. 

"Oh  no,  Clarissa's  not  bad.  Only  she  wants  to  run  with  the 
hare  and  explain  to  the  hounds  when  they  come  up.  .  .  .  What 
happened  next?  Why,  as  I  went  upstairs  past  papa's  room,  out 
comes  mamma  scarlet  with  anger,  and  restraining  herself  in  the 
most  offensive  way  for  me  to  go  past.  I  took  no  notice,  and  when 
she  was  gone  I  went  down  and  walked  straight  into  the  library. 
I  said,  'What  is  it,  papa?'  I  saw  he  was  chuckling  internally, 
as  if  he'd  made  a  hit." 

"Wasn't  he  angry?     What  did  he  say?" 

"Oh  no,  he  wasn't  angry.  Let's  see  ...  oh!  ...  what  he 
said  was,  'That  depends  so  entirely  on  what  it  is,  my  dear.  But, 
broadly  speaking,  I  should  say  it  was  your  mother.'  'What  has 
she  been  saying  to  you?'  I  asked.  And  he  answered,  'I  can  only 
give  her  exact  words  without  pledging  myself  to  their  meaning. 
She  stated  that  she  "supposed  I  was  going  to  tell  my  daughter  I 
approved  of  her  walking  about  Kensington  Gardens  with  that 
man's  arm  around  her  waist."  I  replied — reasonably,  as  it  seems 
to  me — that  I  supposed  that  man  was  there  himself.  Otherwise, 
it  certainly  did  seem  to  me  a  most  objectionable  arrangement,  and 
I  hope  you'll  promise  you  mother  not  to  do  it  again.' '; 

"What  on  earth  did  he  mean?" 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  343 

"You  don't  understand  papa.  He  quibbles  to  irritate  mamma. 
He  meant  like  a  waistband — separate— don't  you  see?" 

"I  see.  But  it  wouldn't  bend  right."  Sally's  truthful  nature 
postpones  laughing  at  the  Professor's  absurdity;  looks  at  the 
case  on  its  merits.  When  she  has  done  justice  to  this  point,  she 
laughs  and  adds:  "What  did  you  say,  Tishy?" 

"Oh,  I  said  what  nonsense,  and  it  wasn't  tight  round  like  all 
that;  only  a  symptom.  And  we  didn't  even  know  mamma  was 
there  because  of  Speke  and  Grant's  obelisk.  There  wasn't  a  soul! 
Papa  saw  it  quite  as  I  did,  and  was  most  reasonable.  So  I 
thought  I  would  feel  my  way  to  developing  an  idea  we  had  been 
broaching,  Julius  and  I,  just  that  very  time  by  the  obelisk.  I 
asked  papa  flatly  what  he  would  do  if  I  married  Julius  straight 
off.  'I  believe,  my  dear,'  said  he,  'that  I  should  be  bound  to  dis- 
approve most  highly  of  your  conduct  and  his.'  'But  should  you, 
papa?'  I  said.  'I  should  be  bound  to,  my  dear,'  said  he.  'But 
should  you  turn  us  out  of  the  house?'  I  asked.  'Most  certainly 
not,'  said  he  emphatically.  'But  I  should  disapprove.'  I  said 
I  should  be  awfully  sorry  for  that.  'Of  course  you  would,'  said 
he.  'Any  dutiful  daughter  would.  But  I  don't  exactly  see  what 
harm  it  would  do  you.'  And  you  see  how  his  letter  begins — 
that  he  is  bound,  as  a  parent,  to  feel  the  strongest  disapprobation, 
and  so  on.  No,  I  don't  think  we  need  be  frightened  of  papa. 
As  for  mamma,  of  course  it  wouldn't  be  reasonable  to  expect  her 
to  .  .  ." 

"To  expect  her  to  what?" 

"Well,  I  was  going  to  say  keep  her  hair  on.  The  expression 
is  Egerton's,  and  I'm  sorry  to  say  his  expressions  are  not  always 
ladylike,  however  telling  they  are!  So  I  hesitated.  Now  what 
is  that  baby  talking  about  down  there?" 

For  through  the  whole  of  Tishy's  interesting  tale  that  baby 
had  been  dwelling  on  the  shocking  occurrence  of  her  sister's  doll 
as  before  recorded.  Her  powers  of  narrative — giving  a  dramatic 
form  to  all  things,  and  stimulated  by  Sally's  statements  of  what 
the  beach  said  to  the  sea,  and  the  sea  said  back — had,  it  seemed, 
attracted  shoals  of  fish  from  the  ocean  depths  to  hear  her  recital 
of  the  tragedy. 

"Suppose,  now,  you  come  and  tell  it  us  up  here,  Gwenny," 
says  the  bride  to  the  bridesmaid.  And  Sally  adds:  "Yes, 


344  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

delicious  little  Miss  Arkwright,  come  and  tell  us  all  about  it  too." 
Whereupon  Miss  Arkwright's  musical  tones  are  suddenly  silent, 
and  her  eyes,  that  are  so  nearly  the  colour  of  the  sea  behind  her, 
remain  fixed  on  her  two  petitioners,  their  owner  not  seeming 
quite  sure  whether  she  shall  acquiesce,  or  coquette,  or  possibly 
even  burst  into  tears.  She  decides,  however,  on  compliance,  com- 
ing suddenly  up  the  beach  on  all  fours,  and  exclaiming,  "Tate 
me!"  flings  herself  bodily  on  Sally,  who  welcomes  her  with,  "You 
sweet  little  darling!"  while  Mrs.  Julius  Bradshaw,  anticipating 
requisition,  looks  in  her  bag  for  another  chocolate.  They  will 
spoil  that  child  between  them. 

"Now  tell  us  about  the  fisses  and  dolly,"  says  Sally.  But  the 
narrator,  all  the  artist  rising  in  her  soul,  will  have  everything  in 
order. 

"I  told  ze  fisses,"  she  says,  reproach  in  her  voice. 

"I  see,  ducky.  You  told  the  fishes,  and  now  you'll  tell  us  all 
about  dolly." 

"I  seeps  wiv  dolly,  because  my  bid  sister  Totey  said  'Yes.' 
Dolly  seeps  in  her  fings.  I  seep  in  my  nightgown.  Kean  from 
the  wass " 

"How  nice  you  must  be!  Well,  then,  what  next?"  Sally  may 
be  said  to  imbibe  the  narrator  at  intervals.  Tishy  calls  her  a 
selfish  girl.  "You've  got  her  all  to  yourself,"  she  says.  The 
story  goes  on: 

"I  seep  vethy  thound.  Papa  seeps  vethy  thound.  Dolly  got 
between  the  theets  and  the  blangticks,  and  came  out.  It  was  a 
dood  dob.  Dane  said  it  was — a  dood  dob!" 

"What  did  Jane  say  was  a  good  job?  Poor  dolly  coming  out?" 
A  long,  grave  headshake  denies  this.  The  constructive  difficulties 
of  the  tale  are  beyond  the  young  narrator's  skill.  She  has  to 
resort  to  ellipsis. 

"Or  I  sood  have  been  all  over  brang  and  sawduss.  Dane  said 
so." 

"Don't  you  see,  Sally,"  says  Tishy,  "dolly  was  in  another 
compartment — the  other  side  of  the  sheet."  But  Sally  says,  of 
course,  she  understands,  perhaps  even  suspects  Tishy  of  claiming 
more  acquaintance  with  children  than  herself  because  she  has 
been  married  three  weeks.  This  isn't  fair  patronising. 

"Dolly  came  out  at  ve  stisses" — so  the  sad  tale  goes  on — "and 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  845 

tyed,  dolly  did.  Dane  put  her  head  on  to  ty  wiv  my  pocket- 
hanshtiff!" 

"I  see,  you  little  ducky,  of  course  her  head  had  come  off,  and 
she  couldn't  cry  till  it  was  put  on,  was  that  it?  Don't  dance, 
but  say  yes  or  no."  This  referred  to  a  seated  triumphal  dance 
the  chronicler  indulged  in  at  having  put  so  much  safely  on  record. 
Having  subsided,  she  decided  on  zass  as  the  proper  thing  to  say, 
but  it  took  time.  Then  she  added  suddenly:  "But  I  told  ze 
fisses."  Sally  took  a  good  long  draught,  and  said:  "Of  course 
you  did,  darling.  You  shan't  be  done  out  of  that!"  But  an 
addendum  or  appendix  was  forthcoming. 

"My  mummar  says  I  must  tate  dolly  to  be  socked  for  a  penny 
where  the  man  is  wiv  buttons — and  the  man  let  Totey  look  froo 
his  pyglass,  and  see  all  ve  long  sips,  sits  miles  long — and  I  shall 
see  when  I'm  a  glowed-up  little  girl,  like  Totey." 

"Coastguard's  telescope,  evidently,"  says  Sally.  "The  man  up 
at  the  flagstaff.  Six  miles  long  is  how  far  off  they  were,  not  the 
length  of  the  ships  at  all." 

"I  saw  that.  But  what  on  earth  were  the  socks?  Does  his 
wife  sell  doll's  clothes?" 

"We  must  try  to  find  that  out."  And  Sally  sets  herself  to  the 
task.  But  it's  none  so  easy.  Some  mystery  shrouds  the  ap- 
proach to  this  passage  in  dolly's  future  life.  It  is  connected  with 
"kymin  up,"  and  "tandin'  on  a  tep,"  and  when  it  began  it  went 
wizzy,  wizzy,  wizz,  and  e-e-e-e,  and  never  stopped.  But  Gwen- 
dolen had  not  been  alarmed  whatever  it  was,  because  her  "puppar" 
was  there.  But  it  was  exhausting  to  the  intellect  to  tell  of,  for 
the  description  ended  with  a  musical,  if  vacuous,  laugh,  and  a 
plunge  into  Sally's  bosom,  where  the  narrator  remained  chuckling, 
but  quite  welcome. 

"So  Gwenny  wasn't  pitened!  What  a  courageous  little  poppet! 
I  wonder  what  on  earth  it  was,  Sally." 

Thus  Tishy,  at  a  loss.  But  Sally  is  sharper,  for  in  a  moment 
the  solution  dawns  upon  her. 

"What  a  couple  of  fools  we  are,  Tishy  dear!  It  wasn't  socks — 
it  was  shocks.  It  was  the  galvanic  battery  at  the  end  of  the  pier. 
A  penny  a  time,  and  you  mustn't  have  it  on  full  up,  or  you  howl. 
Why  on  earth  didn't  we  think  of  that  before?" 

But  Nurse  Jane  comes  in  on  the  top  of  the  laughter  that 


346  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

follows,  which  Miss  Gwendolen  is  joining  in,  rather  claiming  it  as 
a  triumph  for  her  own  dramatic  power.  She  demurs  to  removal, 
but  goes  in  the  end  on  condition  that  all  present  shall  come  and 
see  dolly  galvanised  at  an  early  date.  Jane  agrees  to  replace 
dolly's  vitals  and  sew  her  up  to  qualify  her  for  this  experience. 
And  so  they  depart. 

"What  a  dear  little  mite !"  says  Mrs.  Julius;  and  then  they  let 
the  mite  lapse,  and  go  back  to  the  previous  question. 

"No,  Sally  dear,  mamma  will  be  mamma  to  the  end  of  the 
time.  But  I  didn't  tell  you  all  papa  said,  did  I  ?" 

"How  on  earth  can  I  tell,  Tishy  dear?  You  had  got  to  'any 
dutiful  daughter  would,'  etcetera.  Cut  along!  Comes  of  being 
in  love,  I  suppose."  This  last  is  a  reflection  on  the  low  state  of 
Tishy's  reasoning  powers. 

"Well,  just  after  that,  when  I  was  going  to  kiss  him  and  go, 
papa  stopped  me,  and  said  he  had  something  to  say,  only  he 
mustn't  be  too  long  because  he  had  to  finish,  a  paper  on,  I  think, 
'Some  Technical  Terms  in  use  in  Cnidos  in  the  Sixth  Century, 
B.C.'  Or  was  it  ...  ?" 

"That  was  it.     That  one'll  do  beautifully.     Go  ahead!" 

"Well — of  course  it  doesn't  matter.  It  was  like  papa,  any- 
how. .  .  .  Oh,  yes — what  he  said  then!  It  was  about  Aunt 
Priscilla's  thousand  pounds.  He  wanted  to  repeat  that  the 
interest  would  be  paid  to  me  half-yearly  if  by  chance  I  married 
Julius  or  any  other  man  without  his  consent.  'I  wish  it  to  be 
distinctly  understood  that  if  you  marry  Bradshaw  it  will  be 
against  my  consent.  But  I  only  ask  you  to  promise  me  this, 
Laetitia,  that  you  won't  marry  any  other  man  against  my  consent 
at  present/  I  promised,  and  he  said  I  was  a  dutiful  daughter. 
There  won't  be  any  trouble  with  papa." 

"Don't  look  like  it!  I  say,  Tishy,  that  thousand  pounds  is  very 
nice.  How  much  will  you  have?  Forty  pounds  a  year?" 

"It's  more  than  that.  It's  gone  up,  somehow — sums  of  money 
do — or  down.  They're  never  the  same  as  at  first.  I'm  so  glad 
about  it.  It's  not  as  if  I  brought  Julius  absolutely  nothing." 

"How  much  is  it?"  Sally  is  under  the  impression  that  sums 
of  money  that  exist  on  the  word  of  signed  documents  only,  and 
whose  materialisation  can  only  be  witnessed  by  bankers,  are  like 
fourpence,  one  of  whose  properties  is  that  it  is  fourpence.  They 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  347 

are  not  analogous,  and  Laetitia  is  being  initiated  into  the  higher 
knowledge. 

"Well,  dear,  you  see  the  stock  has  gone  up,  and  it's  at  six  three- 
quarters.  You  must  ask  Julius.  He  can  do  the  arithmetic." 

"Does  that  mean  it's  sixty-seven  pounds  ten?" 

"You'd  better  ask  Julius.  Then,  you  know,  there's  the 
interest."  Sally  asked  what  interest.  "Why,  you  see,  Aunt 
Priscilla  left  it  to  me  eleven  years  ago,  so  there's  more."  But  a 
vendor  of  mauve  and  magenta  woollen  goods,  known  to  Sally  as 
"the  beach-woman,"  was  working  up  towards  them. 

"That  woman  never  goes  when  she  comes,"  said  Sally.  "Let's 
get  up  and  go!" 

We  like  lingering  over  this  pleasant  little  time.  It  helps  on 
but  little,  if  at  all,  with  our  story.  But  in  years  to  come  this 
young  couple,  who  only  slip  into  it  by  a  side-chance,  having  really 
little  more  to  do  with  it  than  any  of  the  thousand  and  one  col- 
laterals that  interest  the  lives  of  all  of  us,  and  come  and  go  and 
are  forgotten — this  Julius  and  Laetitia  will  talk  of  the  pleasant 
three  days  or  so  they  had  at  St.  Sennans  when  they  came  back 
from  France.  And  we,  too,  having  choice  of  how  much  we  shall 
tell  of  those  three  or  four  days,  are  in  little  haste  to  leave  them. 
Those  hours  of  unblushing  idleness  under  a  glorious  sun — idle- 
ness fostered  and  encouraged  until  it  seems  one  great  exertion  to 
call  a  fly,  and  another  to  subside  into  it — idleness  on  matchless 
moonlight  nights,  on  land  or  on  water — idleness  with  an  affecta- 
tion of  astronomical  study,  just  up  to  speculating  on  the  identity 
of  Aldebaran  or  Arcturus,  but  scarcely  equal  to  metaphysics — 
idleness  that  lends  itself  readily  to  turning  tables  and  automatic 
writing,  and  gets  some  convincing  phenomena,  and  finds  out 
that  so-and-so  is  an  extraordinary  medium — idleness  that  says 
that  letter  will  do  just  as  well  to-morrow,  and  Smith  must  wait — 
such  hours  as  these  disintegrate  the  moral  fibre  and  anesthetize 
our  sense  of  responsibility,  and  make  us  so  oblivious  of  musical 
criticism  that  we  accept  brass  bands  and  inexplicable  serenaders, 
white  or  black,  and  even  accordions  and  hurdy-gurdies,  as  intrin- 
sic features  of  the  ensemble — the  fengshui  of  the  time  and 
place — and  give  them  a  penny  if  we've  got  one. 

That  is  and  will  be  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Julius  Bradshaw's  memory 


348  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

of  those  three  days  or  so,  when  they  have  grown  quite  old  to- 
gether, as  we  hope  they  may.  And  if  you  add  memory  of  an 
intoxicated  delirium  of  love — of  love  that  was  on  no  account  to 
be  shown  or  declared  or  even  hinted  at — and  of  a  tiresome  hitch 
or  qualification,  an  unselfish  parent  in  full  blow,  you  will  have 
the  record  that  is  to  remain  in  the  mind  of  Conrad  Vereker. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

HOW  SALLY  DIDN'T  CONFESS  ABOUT  THE  DOCTOR,  AND  JEREMIAH  CAME 
TO  ST.  SENNANS  ONCE  MORE 

THAT  evening  Sally  sat  with  her  mother  on  the  very  uncom- 
fortable seat  they  affected  on  what  was  known  as  the  Parade,  a 
stone's  throw  from  the  house  for  a  good  stone-thrower.  It  had 
a  little  platform  of  pebbles  to  stand  on,  and  tamarisks  to  tickle 
you  from  behind  when  the  wind  was  northerly.  It  was  a  cor- 
rugated and  painful  seat,  and  had  a  strange  power  of  finding 
out  your  tender  vertebrae  and  pulverising  them,  whatever  your 
stature  might  be.  It  fell  forward  when  its  occupants,  goaded 
to  madness,  bore  too  hard  on  its  front  bar,  and  convinced  them 
they  would  do  well,  henceforward,  to  hold  it  artificially  in  its 
place.  But  Bosalind  and  her  daughter  forgave  it  all  these  de- 
fects— perhaps  because  they  were  really  too  lazy  to  protest  even 
against  torture.  It  was  the  sea  air.  Anyhow,  there  they  sat 
that  evening,  waiting  for  Padlock's  omnibus  to  come,  bringing 
Fenwick  from  the  station.  Just  at  the  moment  at  which  the 
story  overtakes  them,  Rosalind  was  looking  wonderfully  hand- 
some in  the  sunset  light,  and  Sally  was  thinking  to  herself  what 
a  beautiful  mother  she  had;  and  how,  when  the  after-glow  dies, 
it  will  leave  its  memory  in  the  red  gold  that  is  somewhere  in  the 
rich  brown  her  eyes  are  resting  on.  Sally  was  fond  of  dwelling 
on  her  mother's  beauty.  Perhaps  doing  so  satisfied  her  personal 
vanity  by  deputy.  She  was  content  with  her  own  self,  but  had 
no  admiration  for  it. 

"You  are  a  dear  good  mammy.  Fancy  your  losing  all  the  best 
time  of  the  morning  indoors!" 

"How  the  best  time  of  the  morning,  chick?" 

"Sitting  with  that  old  cat  upstairs.  .  .  .  Well,  I  can't  help 
it.  She  is  an  old  cat." 

"You're  a  perverse  little  monkey,  kitten;  that's  what  you  are!" 
Rosalind  laughed  with  an  excuse — or  caress,  it  may  be — in  her 

349 


350  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

laugh.  "No,"  she  continued,  "we  are  much  too  hard  on  that  old 
lady,  both  of  us.  Do  you  know,  to-day  she  was  quite  entertain- 
ing— told  me  all  about  her  own  wedding-day,  and  how  all  the 
bridesmaids  had  the  mumps." 

"Has  she  never  told  you  that  before?" 

"Only  once.  Then  she  told  me  about  the  late-lamented,  and 
what  a  respect  he  had  for  her  judgment,  and  how  he  referred  to 
her  at  every  crisis.  I  didn't  think  her  at  all  bad  company." 

"Because  you're  a  darling.  I  suppose  you  had  it  all  about 
how  Prosy,  when  he  was  a  boy,  wanted  to  study  music,  and  how 
his  pa  said  that  the  turning-point  in  the  career  of  youth  lay  in 
the  choice  of  a  profession." 

"Oh  yes!  And  how  his  strong  musical  turn  came  from  her 
side  of  the  family.  In  herself  it  was  dormant.  But  her  Aunt 
Sophia  had  never  once  put  her  finger  on  a  false  note  of  the  piano. 
This  was  confirmed  by  the  authority  of  her  eminent  uncle,  Dr. 
Everett  Gayler,  himself  no  mean  musician." 

"Poor  Prosy!     I  know." 

"And  how  musical  faculty — amounting  to  genius — often  re- 
mained absolutely  unsuspected  owing  to  its  professor  having  no 
inheritance.  But  it  would  come  out  in  the  children.  Then,  and 
not  till  then,  tardy  justice  was  done.  .  .  .  Well,  I  don't  know 
exactly  how  she  worked  it  out,  but  she  managed  to  suggest  that 
she  was  Handel  and  Mozart  in  abeyance.  Her  son's  fair  com- 
plexion clinched  matters.  It  was  the  true  prototype  of  her  own. 
A  thoroughly  musical  complexion,  bespeaking  German  ancestry." 

"Isn't  that  the  omnibus?"  says  Sally.  But,  no,  it  isn't.  She 
continues:  "I  don't  believe  in  musical  complexions.  Look  at 
Julius  Bradshaw — dark,  with  high  cheek-bones,  and  a  thin  olive 
hand  with  blue  veins  in  it.  I  say,  mother.  .  .  ." 

"What,  chick?" 

"He's  changed  his  identity — Julius  Bradshaw  has.  I  can't 
believe  he  was  that  spooney  boy  that  used  to  come  hankering  after 
me  at  church."  And  the  amusement  this  memory  makes  hangs 
about  Sally's  lips  as  the  two  sit  on  into  a  pause  of  silence. 

The  face  of  the  mother  does  not  catch  the  amusement,  but 
remains  grave  and  thoughtful.  She  does  not  speak;  but  the 
handsome  eyes  that  rest  so  lovingly  on  the  speaker  are  full  of 
something  from  the  past — some  record  that  it  would  be  an  utter 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  351 

bewilderment  to  Sally  to  read — a  bewilderment  far  beyond  that 
crux  of  the  moment  which  maybe  has  struck  her  young  mind  for 
the  first  time — the  old  familiar  puzzle  of  the  change  that  comes 
to  all  of  us  in  our  transition  from  first  to  last  experience  of  the 
strange  phenomenon  we  call  a  friend.  Sally  can't  make  it  out — 
the  way  a  silly  lad,  love-struck  about  her  indifferent  self  so  short 
a  while  back,  has  become  a  totally  altered  person,  the  husband  of 
her  schoolmate,  an  actual  identity  of  life  and  thought  and  feel- 
ing; he  who  was  in  those  early  days  little  more  than  a  suit  of 
clothes  and  a  new  prayer-book. 

But  if  that  is  so  strange  to  Sally,  how  measurelessly  stranger 
is  she  herself  to  her  mother  beside  her!  And  the  man  they  are 
waiting  and  watching  for,  who  is  somewhere  between  this  and 
St.  Egbert's  station  in  Padlock's  venerable  'bus,  what  a  crux  is 
he,  compared  now  to  that  intoxicated  young  lover  of  two-and- 
twenty  years  ago,  in  that  lawn-tennis  garden  that  has  passed  so 
utterly  from  his  memory!  And  a  moment's  doubt,  "But — has 
it?"  is  caught  and  absorbed  by  what  seemed  to  Rosalind  now  an 
almost  absurd  fact — that,  a  week  before,  he  had  been  nothing 
but  a  fidiLS  Achates  of  that  other  young  man  provided  to  make  up 
the  lawn-tennis  set,  and  that  it  was  that  other  young  man  at  first, 
not  he,  that  belonged  to  her.  And  he  had  changed  away  so 
easily  to — who  was  it?  Jessie  Nairn,  to  be  sure — and  left  the 
coast  clear  for  his  friend.  Whatever  now  was  his  name?  Oh 
dear,  what  a  fool  was  Rosalind!  said  she  to  herself,  to  have  half 
let  slip  that  it  was  he  that  was  Fenwick,  and  not  Gerry  at  all. 
All  this  compares  itself  with  Sally's  experience  of  Bradshaw's 
metamorphosis,  and  her  own  seems  the  stranger. 

Then  a  moment  of  sharp  pain  that  she  cannot  talk  to  Sally  of 
these  things,  but  must  lead  a  secret  life  in  her  own  silent  heart. 
And  then  she  comes  back  into  the  living  world,  and  finds  Sally 
well  on  with  the  development  of  another  topic, 

"Of  course,  poor  dears!  They've  not  played  a  note  together 
since  the  row.  It's  been  nothing  but  Kensington  Gardens  or  the 
Albert  Hall.  But  I'm  afraid  he's  no  better.  If  only  he  could  be, 
it  would  make  all  the  difference." 

"What's  that,  darling?  Who  could  be  .  .  .  ?  Not  your 
father?"  For,  as  often  as  not,  Rosalind  would  speak  of  her 
husband  as  Sally's  father. 


352  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Not  Jeremiah — no.  I  was  talking  about  Julius  B.  and  his 
nervous  system.  Wouldn't  it?" 

"Wouldn't  it  what?" 

"Make  all  the  difference?  I  mean  that  he  could  get  his 
violin-playing  back.  I  told  you  about  that  letter?" 

"No— what  letter?" 

"From  an  agent  in  Paris.  Rateau,  I  think,  was  the  name. 
Had  heard  Signor  Carissimi  had  recovered  his  health  completely, 
and  was  playing.  Hoped  he  might  be  honoured  with  his  instruc- 
tions to  make  his  arrangements  in  Paris,  as  he  had  done  so  four 
years  ago.  Wasn't  it  aggravating?" 

"Does  it  make  any  difference?" 

"Why,  of  course  it  does,  mother  darling.  The  aggravation! 
Just  think  now!  Suppose  he  could  rely  on  ten  pounds  a  night, 
fancy  that!" 

"Suppose  he  could!  .  .  .  Yes,  that  would  be  nice."  But 
there  is  a  preoccupation  in  her  tone,  and  Sally  wants  sympathy 
to  be  drawn  with  a  vigorous  outline. 

"What's  my  maternal  parent  thinking  about,  as  grave  as  a 
judge?  Jeremiah's  all  right,  mammy  darling!  He's  not  killed 
in  a  railway  accident.  Catch  him  /"  This  is  part  of  a  systema- 
tized relationship  between  the  two.  Each  always  discredits  the 
possibility  of  mishap  to  the  other.  It  might  be  described  as 
chronic  reciprocal  Christian  Science. 

"I  wasn't  thinking  of  Gerry."  Which  is  true  in  a  sense,  as 
she  does  not  think  of  the  Gerry  her  daughter  knows.  And  the 
partial  untruth  does  not  cross  her  mind — a  tacit  recognition  of 
the  powers  of  change.  "I  was  wool-gathering." 

"No — what  was  she  thinking  of?"  For  some  reason  the  third 
person  is  thought  more  persuasive  than  the  second. 

"Thinking  of  her  kitten."  And  this  is  true  enough,  as  Eosa- 
lind  is  really  always  thinking  of  Sally,  more  or  less. 

"We-ell,  I'm  all  right.     What's  the  matter  with  mef" 

"Nothing  at  all  that  I  know  of,  darling."  But  it  does  cross 
the  speaker's  mind  that  the  context  of  circumstances  might  make 
this  an  opportunity  for  getting  at  some  information  she  wants. 
For  Sally  has  remained  perfectly  inscrutable  about  Conrad  Vere- 
ker,  and  Rosalind  has  been  asking  herself  whether  it  is  possible 
that,  after  all,  there  is  nothing.  She  doesn't  know  how  to  set 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  353 

about  it,  though.  Perhaps  the  best  thing  would  be  to  take  a 
leaf  out  of  Sally's  own  book,  and  go  straight  to  the  bull's-eye. 

"Do  you  really  want  to  know  what  I  was  thinking  of,  Sally- 
kin?"  But  no  sooner  has  she  formulated  the  intention  of  asking 
a  question,  and  allowed  the  intention  to  creep  into  her  voice  than 
Sally  knows  all  about  it. 

"As  if  I  don't  know  already.     You  mean  me  and  Prosy." 

"Of  course.     But  how  did  you  know?" 

"Mammy  dear!  As  if  I  was  born  yesterday!  If  you  want 
people  not  to  know  things,  you  mustn't  have  delicate  inflexions  of 
voice.  I  knew  you  were  going  to  catechize  about  Prosy  the 
minute  you  got  to  'did  I  really  want  to  know.' " 

"But  I'm  not  going  to  catechize,  chick.  Only  when  you  ask 
me  what  I'm  thinking  about,  and  really  want  to  know,  I  tell  you. 
I  was  thinking  about  you  and  Conrad  Vereker."  For  some 
mysterious  reason  this  mention  of  his  name  in  full  seems  to  ma- 
ture the  conversation,  and  make  clearer  definition  necessary. 

Our  own  private  opinion  is  that  any  one  who  closely  observes 
human  communion  will  see  that  two-thirds  of  it  runs  on  lines 
like  the  foregoing.  Very  rarely  indeed  does  a  human  creature 
say  what  it  means.  Exhaustive  definition,  lucid  statements,  con- 
cise terminology — even  plain  English — are  foreign  to  its  nature. 
The  congenial  soil  in  which  the  fruit  of  Intelligence  ripens  is 
Suggestion,  and  the  wireless  telegraphs  of  the  mind  are  the  means 
by  which  it  rejoices  to  communicate.  Don't  try  to  say  what  you 
mean — because  you  can't.  You  are  not  clever  enough.  Try  to 
mean  what  you  want  to  say,  and  leave  the  dictionary  to  take  care 
of  itself. 

This  little  bit  of  philosophizing  of  ours  has  just  given  Sally 
time,  pondering  gravely  with  the  eyebrows  all  at  rest  and  lips  at 
ease,  to  deal  with  the  developed  position  created  by  the  mere  sub- 
stitution of  a  name  for  a  nickname. 

"Ought  there  to 'be  ...  anything  to  think  about?"  Thus 
Sally;  and  her  mother  sees,  or  thinks  she  sees,  a  little  new  colour 
in  the  girl's  cheeks.  Or  is  it  only  the  sunset?  Then  Rosalind 
says  to  herself  that  perhaps  she  has  made  a  mistake,  had  better 
have  left  it  alone.  Perhaps.  But  it's  done  now.  She  is  not  one 
that  goes  back  on  her  resolutions.  It  is  best  not  to  be  too  tugging 
and  solemn  over  it  She  speaks  with  a  laugh. 


354  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"It's  not  my  little  daughter  I'm  afraid  of,  Sally  kin.  She's  got 
the  key  of  the  position.  It's  that  dear  good  boy." 

"He's  not  a  boy.  He's  thirty-one  next  February.  Only  he's 
not  got  a  birthday,  because  it's  not  leap-year.  Going  by  birth- 
days he's  not  quite  half-past  seven." 

"Then  it  won't  do  to  go  by  birthdays.  Even  at  thirty-one, 
though,  some  boys  are  not  old  enough  to  know  better.  He's  very 
inexperienced  in  some  things." 

"A  babe  unborn — only  he  can  write  prescriptions.  Only  they 
don't  do  you  any  good.  ("Ungrateful  child !"  .  .  .  "Well,  they 
don't.")  You  see,  he  hasn't  any  one  to  go  to  to  ask  about  things 
except  me.  Of  course  I  can  tell  him,  if  you  come  to  that!" 

"There's  his  mother." 

"His  mother!  That  old  dianthus!  Oh,  mammy  darling,  what 
different  sorts  of  mothers  do  crop  up  when  you  think  of  it!" 
And  Sally  is  so  moved  by  this  scientific  marvel  that  she  suddenly 
kisses  her  mother,  there  out  on  the  public  parade  with  a  gentle- 
man in  check  trousers  and  an  eye-glass  coming  along! 

"Why  do  you  call  the  old  lady  a  dianthus,  chick?  Really,  the 
way  you  treat  that  poor  old  body!  .  .  ." 

"Not  when  Prosy's  there.  I  know  my  place.  .  .  .  We-ell, 
you  know  what  a  dianthus's  figure  is  like?  When  the  tentacles 
are  in,  I  mean." 

But  Rosalind  tacitly  condemns  the  analogy.  Is  she  not  herself 
a  mother,  and  bound  to  take  part  with  her  kind,  however  obese? 
"What  were  you  and  the  doctor  talking  about  in  the  boat  all  that 
long  time  yesterday  ?"  she  asks,  skipping  an  interval  which  might 
easily  have  contained  a  review  of  Mrs.  Vereker  inside-out  like  a 
sea-anemone.  Sally  is  quite  equal  to  it. 

"Resuscitation  after  drowning.  Prosy  says  death  is  really  due 
to  carbonic  acid  poisoning.  Anybody  would  think  it  was  chok- 
ing, but  it's  nothing  of  the  sort.  The  arterial  blood  is  insuffi- 
ciently fed  with  oxygen,  and  death  ensues." 

"How  long  did  you  talk  about  that?" 

"Ever  so  long.  Till  I  asked  him  what  he  should  do  if  a  visitor 
were  drowned  and  couldn't  be  brought  to.  Not  at  the  hotel; 
down  here.  Me,  for  instance." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"He  was  jolly  solemn  over  it,  Prosy  was.    Said  he  should  try 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  355 

his  best,  and  as  soon  as  he  was  sure  it  was  no  go,  put  an  end  to  his 
own  existence.  I  said  that  would  be  wrong,  and  besides,  he 
couldn't  do  it.  He  said,  oh  yes,  he  could — he  could  inject  air  into 
a  vein,  and  lots  of  things.  He  went  on  a  physiological  tack,  so 
I  quoted  Hamlet." 

"What  did  he  make  of  Hamlet?" 

"Said  the  researches  of  modern  science  all  tended  to  prove  that 
extinction  awaited  us  at  death,  and  he  would  take  his  chance. 
He  was  quite  serious  over  it." 

"And  then  you  said?  .  .  ." 

"I  said,  suppose  it  turned  out  that  modern  science  was  tommy- 
rot,  wouldn't  he  feel  like  a  fool  when  all  was  said  and  done? 
He  admitted  that  he  might,  in  that  case.  But  he  would  take 
his  chance,  he  said.  And  then  we  had  a  long  argument,  Prosy 
and  I." 

"Has  he  ever  resuscitated  a  drowned  person?" 

"Oh  yes,  two  or  three.  But  he  says  he  should  like  a  little  more 
practice,  as  it's  a  very  interesting  subject." 

"You  really  are  the  most  ridiculous  little  kitten  there  ever 
was!  Talking  like  the  President  of  the  Koyal  College  of  Sur- 
geons! Not  a  smile." 

"We-ell,  there's  nothing  in  that"  Slightly  offended  dignity 
on  Miss  Sally's  part.  "I  say,  the  'bus  is  very  late;  it's  striking 
seven." 

But  just  as  St.  Sennan  ceases,  and  leaves  the  air  clear  for 
listening,  Rosalind  exclaims,  "Isn't  that  it?"  And  this  time  it 
is  it,  and  by  ten  minutes  past  seven  Fenwick  is  in  the  arms  of  his 
family,  who  congratulate  him  on  a  beautiful  new  suit  of  navy- 
blue  serge,  in  which  he  looks  very  handsome. 

Often  now  when  she  looks  back  to  those  days  can  Rosalind  see 
before  her  the  grave  young  face  in  the  sundown,  and  hear  the 
tale  of  Dr.  Conrad's  materialism.  And  then  she  sees  once  more 
over  the  smooth  purple  sea  of  the  day  before  the  little  boat 
sculled  by  Vereker,  with  Sally  in  the  stern  steering.  And  the 
white  sails  of  the  Grace  Darling  of  St.  Sennans,  that  had  taken 
a  large  party  out  at  sixpence  each  person  three  hours  ago,  and 
couldn't  get  back  by  herself  for  want  of  wind,  and  had  to  be 
towed  by  a  row-boat,  whose  oars  sounded  rhythmically  across 


356  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

the  mile  of  intervening  water.  She  was  doing  nothing  to  help, 
was  Grace,  but  her  sails  flopped  a  little  now  and  again,  just 
enough  to  show  how  glad  she  would  have  been  to  do  so  with  a 
little  encouragement.  Rosalind  can  see  it  all  again  quite  plain, 
and  the  little  white  creamy  cloud  that  had  taken  pity  on  the 
doctor  sculling  in  the  boat,  and  made  a  cool  island  of  shadow, 
coloured  imperial  purple  on  the  sea,  for  him  and  Sally  to  float 
in,  and  talk  of  how  some  unknown  person,  fool  enough  to  get 
drowned,  should  one  day  be  recalled  from  the  gate  of  Death. 


CHAPTEK  XXXII 

HOW  SALLY  DIVED  OFF  THE  BOAT,  AND  SHOCKED  THE  BEACH.  OF  THE 
SENSITIVE  DELICACY  .  OF  THE  OCTOPUS.  AND  OF  DR.  EVERETT  GAY- 
LER'S  OPINIONS 

FENWICK  had  been  granted,  or  had  appropriated,  another 
week's  holiday,  and  the  wine-trade  was  to  lose  some  of  his  valu- 
able services  during  that  time.  Not  all,  because  in  these  days  you 
can  do  so  much  by  telegraph.  Consequently  the  chimney-piece 
with  the  rabbits  made  of  shells  on  each  side,  and  the  model  of 
the  Dreadnought — with  real  planks  and  a  companion-ladder  that 
went  too  far  down,  and  almost  serviceable  brass  carronades  ready 
for  action — and  a  sampler  by  Mercy  Lobjoit  (1763),  showing 
David  much  too  small  for  the  stitches  he  was  composed  of,  and 
even  Goliath  not  big  enough  to  have  two  lips — this  chimney-piece 
soon  become  a  magazine  of  yellow  telegrams,  which  blew  away 
when  the  window  and  door  were  open  at  the  same  time. 

It  was  on  the  second  of  Fenwick's  days  on  this  visit  that  an 
unusual  storm  of  telegrams,  as  he  came  in  to  breakfast  after  an 
early  dip  in  the  sea,  confirmed  the  statement  in  the  paper  of  the 
evening  before  that  W.  and  S.W.  breezes  might  be  expected  later. 
"Wind  freshening,"  was  the  phrase  in  which  the  forecast  threw 
doubts  on  the  permanency  of  its  recent  references  to  a  smooth 
Channel-passage.  However,  faith  had  already  been  undermined 
by  current  testimony  to  light  easterly  winds  backing  north,  on 
the  coast  of  Ireland.  Sally  was  denouncing  meteorology  as 
imposture  when  the  returning  bather  produced  the  effect  recorded. 
It  interrupted  a  question  on  his  lips  as  he  entered,  and  postponed 
it  until  the  telegram  papers  had  all  been  reinstated  and  the 
window  closed,  so  that  Mrs.  Lobjoit  might  come  in  with  the  hot 
rolls  and  eggs  and  not  have  anything  blown  away.  Then  peace 
reigned  and  the  question  got  asked. 

"What  are  we  going  to  do  to-day?"  said  Sally,  repeating  it 

867 


358  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"I  know  what  I'm  going  to  do  first.  I'm  going  to  swim  round 
the  buoy." 

"My  dear,  they'll  never  put  the  machines  down  to-day."  This 
was  her  mother. 

"They'll  do  it  fast  enough,  if  I  tell  'em  to.  It's  half  the  fun, 
having  it  a  little  rough." 

"Well,  kitten,  I  suppose  you'll  go  your  own  way;  only  I  shall 
be  very  glad  when  you're  back  in  your  machine.  Coffee,  Gerry?" 

"Yes,  coffee — in  the  big  cup  with  the  chip,  and  lots  of  milk. 
You're  a  dangerous  young  monkey,  Sarah;  and  I  shall  get  old 
Benjamin's  boat,  and  hang  about.  And  then  you'll  be  happy, 
Rosey,  eh?" 

"No,  I  shan't!  We  shall  have  you  getting  capsized,  too.  (I 
put  in  three  lumps  of  sugar.  .  .  .  No,  not  little  ones — big  ones!) 
What  a  thing  it  is  to  be  connected  with  aquatic  characters!" 

"Never  you  mind  the  mother,  Jeremiah.  You  get  the  boat. 
I  should  like  it  to  dive  off." 

"All  right,  I'll  get  Vereker,  and  we'll  row  out.  The  doctor's 
not  bad  as  an  oarsman.  Bradshaw  doesn't  make  much  of  it. 
(Yes,  thanks;  another  egg.  The  brown  one  preferred;  don't 
know  why!)  Yes,  I'll  get  Dr.  Conrad,  and  you  shall  come  and 
dive  off." 

All  which  was  duly  done,  and  Sally  got  into  great  disgrace  by 
scrambling  up  into  the  boat  with  the  help  of  a  looped  rope  hung 
over  the  side,  and  was  thereafter  known  to  more  than  one  decorous 
family  group  frequenting  the  beach  as  that  bold  Miss  Nightin- 
gale. But  what  did  Sally  care  what  those  stuffy  people  thought 
about  her,  with  such  a  set-off  against  their  bad  opinion  as  the 
glorious  plunge  down  into  the  depths,  and  the  rushing  sea- 
murmur  in  her  ears,  the  only  sound  in  the  strange  green  silence; 
and  then  the  sudden  magic  of  the  change  back  to  the  dazzling 
sun  on  the  moving  foam,  and  some  human  voice  that  was  speak- 
ing when  she  dived  only  just  ending  off?  Surely,  after  so  long 
a  plunge  down,  down,  that  voice  should  have  passed  on  to  some 
new  topic. 

For  that  black  and  shining  merpussy,  during  one  deep  dive 
into  the  under-world  of  trackless  waters,  had  had  time  to  recol- 
lect an  appointment  with  a  friend,  and  had  settled  in  her  mind 
that,  as  soon  as  she  was  once  more  in  upper  air,  she  would  men- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  359 

tion  it  to  the  crew  of  the  boat  she  had  dived  from.  She  was  long 
enough  under  for  that.  Then  up  she  came  into  the  rise  and  fall 
and  ripple  overhead  like  a  sudden  Loreley,  and  as  soon  as  she 
could  see  where  the  boat  had  got  to,  and  was  free  of  a  long  stem 
of  floating  weed  she  had  caught  up  in  the  foam,  she  found  her 
voice.  And  in  it,  as  it  rang  out  in  the  morning  air,  was  a  world 
of  youth  and  life  and  hope  from  which  care  was  an  outcast,  flung 
to  the  winds  and  the  waves. 

"I  say,  Jeremiah,  we've  got  to  meet  a  friend  of  yours  on  the 
pier  this  afternoon." 

"Time  for  you  to  come  out  of  that  water,  Sarah."  This  name 
had  become  nearly  invariable  on  Fenwick's  part.  "Who's  your 
friend?" 

"A  young  lady  for  you!  She's  going  to  bring  her  dolly  to 
be  electrified  for  a  penny.  She'll  cry  if  we  don't  go;  so  will 
dolly." 

"Then  we  must  go,  clearly.  The  doctor  must  come  to  see  fair, 
or  dolly  may  get  electrocuted,  like  me."  Fenwick  very  rarely 
spoke  of  his  accident  now;  most  likely  would  not  have  done  so 
this  time  but  for  a  motive  akin  to  his  wife's  nettle-grasping.  He 
knew  Sally  would  think  of  it,  and  would  not  have  her  suppose 
he  shirked  speaking  of  it. « 

But  the  laugh  goes  for  a  moment  out  of  the  face  down  there 
in  the  water,  and  the  pearls  that  glittered  in  the  sun  have  van- 
ished and  the  eyes  are  grave  beneath  their  brows.  Only  for  a 
moment;  then  all  the  Loreley  is  back  in  evidence  again,  and  Sally 
is  petitioning  for  only  one  more  plunge,  and  then  she  really  will 
swim  in.  The  crew  protests,  but  the  Loreley  has  her  way;  her 
sort  generally  has. 

"I  always  wonder,"  says  Dr.  Conrad,  as  they  row  to  shore 
with  studied  slowness — one  must,  to  keep  down  to  the  pace  of 
the  swiftest  swimmer — "I  always  wonder  whether  they  found  that 
half-crown."  Probably  he,  too,  only  says  this  to  accentuate  the 
not-necessarily-to-be-avoided  character  of  the  subject 

The  reason  Fenwick  answered  nothing,  but  remained  thought- 
fully silent,  was,  as  Dr.  Vereker  perceived  after  he  had  spoken, 
that  the  half-crown  was  mere  hearsay  to  him,  and,  as  such, 
naturally  enforced  speculation  on  the  strange  "B.C."  period  of 
which  he  knew  nothing.  Time  did  but  little  to  minimise  the 


360  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

painful  character  of  such  speculations,  although  it  seemed  to 
make  them  less  and  less  frequent.  Vereker  said  no  more,  partly 
because  he  felt  this,  partly  because  he  was  so  engrossed  with  the 
Loreley.  He  dropped  the  half-crown. 

"You  needn't  row  away  yet,"  said  the  voice  from  the  water. 
"The  machines  are  miles  off.  Look  here,  I'm  going  to  swim 
under  the  boat  and  come  up  on  the  other  side!" 

Said  Fenwick:  "You'll  be  drowned,  Sarah,  before  you've  done! 
Do  consider  your  mother  a  little!" 

Said  the  Loreley:  "All  right!  good-bye!"  and  disappeared.  She 
was  so  long  under  that  it  was  quite  a  relief  when  she  reappeared, 
well  off  the  boat's  counter;  for,  of  course,  there  was  some  way  on 
the  boat,  and  Sally  made  none.  The  crew's  eyes  had  been  watch- 
ing the  wrong  water  over  the  beam. 

"Didn't  I  do  that  nicely?  .  .  .  'Beautifully?'  Yes,  I  should 
rather  think  I  did!  Good-bye;  I  must  go  to  my  machine!  They 
won't  leave  it  down  any  longer." 

Off  went  the  swimmer  in  the  highest  spirits,  and  landed  with 
some  difficulty,  so  much  had  the  south-west  wind  freshened;  and 
the  machine  started  up  the  beach  at  a  brisk  canter  to  rejoin  its 
many  unused  companions  on  their  higher  level. 

Dr.  Conrad,  with  the  exhilaration  of  the  Loreley  in  his  heart, 
was  to  meet  with  a  damper  administered  to  him  by  his  affec- 
tionate parent,  who  had  improved  immensely  in  the  sea  air,  and 
was  getting  quite  an  appetite. 

"There  is  nothing,  my  dear,  that  I  detest  more  cordially  than 
interference,"  said  she,  after  accepting,  rather  more  easily  than 
usual,  her  son's  apologies  for  coming  in  late  to  lunch,  and  also 
being  distinctly  gracious  to  Mrs.  Iggulden  about  the  beefsteak- 
pudding.  "Your  father  disapproved  of  it,  and  the  whole  of  my 
family.  The  words  'never  meddle'  were  on  their  lips  from 
morning  till  night.  Is  it  wonderful  that  I  abstain  from  speak- 
ing, as  I  so  often  do?  Whatever  I  see,  I  am  silent."  And  ac- 
cordingly was  for  a  few  illustrative  seconds. 

But  her  son,  conceiving  that  the  pause  was  one  very  common 
in  cases  of  incipient  beefsteak-pudding,  and  really  due  to  kidneys, 
made  an  autopsy  of  the  centre  of  Mrs.  Iggulden's  masterpiece;  but 
when  he  had  differentiated  its  contents  and  insulated  kidneys  be- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  361 

yond  a  doubt,  he  stood  exposed  and  reproved  by  the  tone  in  which 
his  mother  resumed: 

"Not  for  me;  I  have  oceans.  I  shall  never  eat  what  I  have, 
and  it  is  so  wasteful!  .  .  .  No,  my  dear.  You  ask,  'What  is 
it,  then?'  But  I  was  going  to  tell  you  when  you  interrupted 
me."  Here  a  pause  for  the  Universe  to  settle  down  to  attention. 
"There  is  always  so  much  disturbance;  but  my  meaning  is 
plain.  When  I  was  a  girl  young  women  were  different.  ...  I 
dare  say  it  is  all  right.  I  do  not  wish  to  lay  myself  open  to 
ridicule  for  my  old-fashioned  opinions.  .  .  .  What  is  it?  I 
came  back  early,  certainly,  because  I  found  the  sun  so  tiring; 
but  surely,  my  dear,  you  cannot  have  failed  to  see  that  our  front 
window  commands  a  full  view  of  the  bathing-machines.  But  I 
am  silent.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Iggulden  does  not  understand  making 
mustard.  Hers  runs." 

Dr.  Conrad  was  not  interested  in  the  mustard.  He  was  about 
the  cryptic  attack  on  Sally's  swimming  and  diving,  which  he  felt 
to  have  been  dexterously  conveyed  in  his  parent's  speech  with 
scarcely  a  word  really  to  the  point.  There  was  no  lack  of  skill 
in  the  Goody's  method.  He  flushed  slightly,  and  made  no 
immediate  reply — even  to  a  superhumanly  meek,  "I  know  I  shall 
be  told  I  am  wrong" — until  after  he  had  complied  with  a  re- 
quisition for  a  very  little  more — so  small  a  quantity  as  to  seem 
somehow  to  reduce  the  lady's  previous  total  morally,  though  it 
added  to  it  physically — and  then  he  spoke,  taking  the  indictment 
for  granted: 

"I  can't  see  what  you  find  fault  with.  Not  Miss  Sally's 
bathing-costume;  nobody  could!"  Which  was  truth  itself,  for 
nothing  more  elegant  could  have  been  found  in  the  annals  of 
bathing.  "And  if  she  has  a  boat  to  dive  off,  somebody  must 
row  it.  Besides,  her  mother  would  object  if  ..."  But  the 
doctor  is  impatient  and  annoyed — a  rare  thing  with  him.  He 
treats  his  beefsteak-pudding  coldly,  causing  his  mother  to  say: 
"Then  you  can  ring  the  bell." 

However,  she  did  not  intend  her  text  to  be  spoiled  by  irrup- 
tions of  Mrs.  Iggulden,  so  she  waited  until  the  frequent  rice- 
pudding  had  elapsed,  and  then  resumed  at  an  advantage: 

"You  were  very  snappish  and  peevish  with  me  just  now,  Con- 
rad, without  waiting  to  hear  what  I  had  to  say.  But  I  overlook 


362  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

it.  I  am  your  mother.  If  you  had  waited,  I  should  have  told 
you  that  I  have  no  fault  whatever  to  find  with  Miss  Nightingale's 
bathing-dress.  It  is,  no  doubt,  strictly  en  regie.  Nor  can  I  say, 
in  these  days,  what  I  think  of  girls  practising  exercises  that  in  my 
day  were  thought  unwomanly.  All  is  changed  now,  and  I  am 
old-fashioned.  But  this  I  do  say,  that  had  your  father,  or  your 
great-uncle,  Dr.  Everett  Gayler,  been  told  forty  years  ago  that  a 
time  would  come  when  it  would  be  thought  no  disgrace  for  an 
English  girl  to  jump  off  a  boat  with  an  unmarried  man  in  it.  ... 
My  dear,  I  am  sure  the  latter  would  have  made  one  of  those  acrid 
and  biting  remarks  for  which  he  was  celebrated  in  his  own  circle, 
and  which  have  even,  I  believe,  been  repeated  by  Eoyalty.  That 
is  the  only  thing  I  have  to  say.  I  say  nothing  of  girls  learning 
to  swim  and  dive.  I  say  nothing  of  their  bicycling.  Possibly  the 
young  lady  who  passed  the  window  this  morning  with  a  gentle- 
man on  the  same  bicycle  was  properly  engaged  to  him;  or  his 
sister.  Even  about  the  practice  of  Sandow,  or  Japanese  wrestling, 
I  have  nothing  to  say.  But  if  they  are  to  dive  off  boats  in  the 
open  sea,  in  the  face  of  all  the  beach,  at  least  let  the  boats  be 
rowed  by  married  men.  That  is  all  I  ask.  It  is  very  little/' 

What  fools  mothers  sometimes  are  about  their  sons!  They 
contrive  that  these  sons  shall  pass  through  youth  to  early  man- 
hood without  a  suspicion  that  even  mothers  have  human  weak- 
nesses. Then,  all  in  a  moment,  just  when  love  has  ridden 
triumphant  into  the  citadel  of  the  boys'  souls,  they  will  sacrifice 
all — all  they  have  won  in  a  lifetime — to  indulge  some  petty 
spleen  against  the  new  regime  that  threatens  their  dethronement. 
And  there  is  no  surer  way  of  undermining  a  son's  loyalty  than  to 
suggest  a  want  of  delicate  feeling  in  the  new  Queen — nothing 
that  can  make  him  question  the  past  so  effectually  as  to  force 
him  to  hold  his  nostrils  in  a  smell  of  propriety,  puffed  into  what 
seems  to  him  a  gale  from  heaven. 

The  contrast  between  the  recent  merpussy  in  the  freshening 
seas,  and  this,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  perfectly  gratuitous  intrusion 
of  moral  carbolic  acid,  gave  Dr.  Conrad  a  sense  of  nausea,  which 
his  love  for  his  mother  enjoined  ignorance  of.  His  mind  cast 
about,  not  for  ways  of  excusing  Sally — the  idea! — but  of  white- 
washing his  mother,  without  seeming  to  suggest  that  her  own 
mind  had  anything  Fescennine  about  it.  This  is  always  the 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  363 

great  difficulty  skywardness  has  in  dealing  with  the  moral  scaven- 
ger. Are  not  the  motives  of  purity  unimpeachable? 

Goody  Vereker,  however,  did  not  suspect  herself  of  being  a 
fool.  On  the  contrary,  she  felt  highly  satisfied  with  her  speech, 
and  may  be  said  to  have  hugged  its  peroration.  Her  son  flushed 
slightly  and  bit  his  lip,  giving  the  old  lady  time  for  a  corollary 
in  a  subdued  and  chastened  voice. 

"Had  I  been  asked — had  you  consulted  me,  my  dear — I  should 
certainly  have  advised  that  Mr.  Fenwick  should  have  been  ac- 
companied by  another  married  man,  certainly  not  by  a  young, 
single  gentleman.  The  man  himself — I  am  referring  to  the 
owner  of  the  boat — would  have  done  quite  well,  whether  married 
or  single.  Boatmen  are  seldom  unmarried,  though  frequently 
tattooed  with  ladies'  names  when  they  have  been  in  the  navy. 
You  see  something  to  laugh  at,  Conrad?  In  your  mother!  But 
I  am  used  to  it."  The  doctor's  smile  was  in  memory  of  two 
sun-browned  arms  that  had  pushed  the  boat  off  two  hours  ago. 
One  had  Elinor  and  Kate  on  it,  the  other  Bessie  and  a  Union 
Jack. 

"Don't  you  think,  mother  dear,"  said  the  doctor  at  last,  "that 
if  Mrs.  Fenwick,  who  knew  all  about  it,  had  seen  anything  out- 
rageous she  would  have  spoken  ?  She  really  only  seemed  anxious 
none  of  us  should  get  drowned." 

"Very  likely,  my  dear ;  she  would  be.  You  will,  I  am  sure,  do 
me  this  justice,  that  I  have  throughout  said,  from  the  very  begin- 
ning, that  Mrs.  Fenwick  is  a  most  excellent  person,  though  I  have 
sometimes  found  her  tiring." 

"I  am  sorry  she  has  tired  you.  You  must  always  tell  her, 
you  know,  when  you're  tired,  and  then  she'll  come  and  fetch  me." 
The  doctor  resisted  a  temptation  to  ask,  "From  the  very  begin- 
ning of  wliat?"  For  the  suggestion  that  materials  for  laceration 
were  simmering  was  without  foundation;  was,  in  fact,  only  an 
example  of  the  speaker's  method.  She  followed  it  with  another. 

"It  is  so  often  the  case  with  women  who  have  passed  a  good 
deal  of  time  in  India." 

"Are  women  tiring  when  they  have  passed  a  good  deal  of  time 
in  India?" 

"My  dear  Conrad,  is  it  likely  I  should  talk  such  nonsense? 
You  know  perfectly  well  what  I  mean."  But  the  doctor  merely 


364  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

awaited  natural  development,  which  came.  "Mind,  I  do  not  say 
I  believe  Mrs.  Julius  Bradshaw's  story.  But  it  would  quite 
account  for  it — fully!" 

What  would  account  for  what?  Heaven  only  knew!  How- 
ever, the  speaker  was  getting  the  bit  in  her  teeth,  and  earth  would 
know  very  soon.  Dr.  Conrad  was  conscious  at  this  moment  of  the 
sensation  which  had  once  made  Sally  speak  of  his  mamma  as  an 
Octopus.  She  threw  out  a  tentacle. 

"And,  of  course,  Mrs.  Julius  Bradshaw's  story  may  be  nothing 
but  idle  talk.  I  am  the  last  person  to  give  credit  to  mere  irre- 
sponsible gossip.  Let  us  hope  it  is  ill  founded." 

Whereupon  her  son,  who  knew  another  tentacle  would  come 
and  entangle  him  if  he  slipped  clear  from  this  one,  surrendered 
at  discretion.  What  was  Mrs.  Julius  Bradshaw's  story?  A 
most  uncandid  way  of  putting  it,  for  the  fact  was  he  had  heard 
it  all  from  Sally  in  the  strictest  confidence.  So  the  insincerity 
was  compulsory,  in  a  sense. 

The  Octopus,  who  was  by  this  time  anchored  in  her  knitting- 
chair  and  awaiting  her  mixture — two  tablespoonfuls  after  every 
meal — closed  her  eyes  to  pursue  the  subject,  but  warmed  to  the 
chace  visibly. 

"Are  you  going  to  tell  me,  my  dear  Conrad,  that  you  do  not 
know  that  it  has  been  said — I  vouch  for  nothing,  remember — 
that  Miss  Nightingale's  mother  was  divorced  from  her  father 
twenty  years  ago  in  India?" 

"I  don't  think  it's  any  concern  of  yours  or  mine."  But  having 
said  this,  he  would  have  liked  to  recall  it  and  substitute  some- 
thing else.  It  was  brusque,  and  he  was  not  sure  that  it  was  a 
fair  way  of  stating  the  case,  especially  as  this  matter  had  been 
freely  discussed  between  them  in  the  days  of  their  first  acquaint- 
ance with  Sally  and  her  mother.  Dr.  Conrad  felt  mean  for 
renegading  from  his  apparent  admission  at  that  time  that  the 
divorce  was  an  affair  they  might  properly  speculate  about.  Mrs. 
Vereker  knew  well  that  her  son  would  be  hard  on  himself  for  the 
slightest  unfairness,  and  forthwith  climbed  up  to  a  pinnacle  of 
flawless  rectitude,  for  his  confusion. 

"My  dear,  it  is  absolutely  none.  Am  I  saying  that  it  is? 
People's  past  lives  are  no  affair  of  ours.  Am  I  saying  that  they 
are?" 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  365 

"Well,  no!" 

"Very  well,  then,  my  dear,  listen  to  what  I  do  say,  and  do  not 
misrepresent  me.  What  I  say  is  this — (Are  you  sure  Perkins 
has  mixed  this  medicine  the  same  as  the  last?  The  taste's 
different) — Now  listen!  What  I  say  is,  and  I  can  repeat  it  any 
number  of  times,  that  it  is  useless  to  expect  sensitiveness  on  such 
points  under  such  circumstances.  I  am  certain  that  your  father, 
or  your  great-uncle,  Dr.  Everett  Gayler,  would  not  have  hesitated 
to  endorse  my  opinion  that  on  the  broad  question  of  whether  a 
girl  should  or  should  not  dive  off  a  boat  rowed  by  an  unmarried 
man,  no  one  is  less  likely  to  form  a  correct  judgment  than  a  lady 
who  was  divorced  from  her  husband  twenty  years  ago  in  India. 
But  I  say  nothing  against  Mrs.  Fenwick.  She  is,  so  far  as  she  is 
known  to  me,  an  excellent  person,  and  a  good  wife  and  mother. 
Now,  my  dear  Conrad,  I  must  rest,  for  I  fear  I  have  talked  too 
much." 

Poor  Prosy!  All  the  edge  of  his  joy  of  the  morning  was  taken 
off.  But  never  mind!  It  would  very  soon  be  Sally  herself 
again,  and  his  thirsty  soul  would  be  drinking  deep  draughts  of 
her  at  the  pier-end,  where  the  appointment  was  to  be  kept  with 
the  young  lady  and  her  dolly. 


CHAPTEE  XXXIII 

OP  AN  INTERMITTENT  CURRENT  AT  THE  PIER-END,  AND  OF  DOLLY'S  FORTI- 
TUDE. HOW  FENWICK  PUT  HIS  HEAD  IN  THE  JAWS  OF  THE  FUTURE 
UNAWARES,  AND  PROSY  DIDN'T  COME.  HOW  SALLY  AND  HER  STEP 
SAW  PUNCH,  AND  OF  A  THIN  END  OF  A  FATAL  WEDGE.  BUT  ROSALIND 
SAW  NO  COMING  CLOUD 

AN  iron  pier,  with  a  sense  of  lattice  structure  about  it,  is  not 
to  our  old-fashioned  minds  nearly  so  fascinating  as  the  wooden 
fabric  of  our  early  memories  at  more  than  one  seaside  resort  of 
our  boyhood.  St.  Sennan  was  of  another  school,  or  had  become 
a  convert  or  pervert,  if  a  Saint  may  be  judged  by  his  pier.  For 
this  was  iron  or  steel  all  through,  barring  the  timber  flooring 
whose  planks  were  a  quarter  of  an  inch  apart,  so  that  you  could 
kneel  down  to  see  the  water  through  if  you  were  too  short  to  see 
over  the  advertisements  a  sordid  spirit  of  commercialism  had 
blocked  the  side-railings  with.  And  if  you  were  three  or  four, 
and  there  was  nobody  to  hold  you  up  (because  they  were  carrying 
baby),  you  did  so  kneel,  and  as  like  as  not  got  tar  on  your  knees, 
and  it  wouldn't  come  off.  Anyhow,  Miss  Gwendolen  Arkwright 
did,  on  her  way  to  the  appointment,  and  was  reproved  therefore. 
On  which  she  also  reproved  dolly  in  identical  terms,  dolly  having 
had  a  look  through  as  well,  though,  indeed,  she  can  hardly  be 
said  to  have  knelt. 

But  to  console  us  for  the  loss  of  the  solid  groins  and  bolted 
timbers  of  our  youth,  and  to  make  it  palatable  to  us  that  the 
great  seas  should  follow  each  other  for  ever  almost  unopposed — 
instead  of  being  broken  into  floods  of  drenching  foam  visitors 
get  wet-through  in — this  unsubstantial-looking  piece  of  cage- 
work  expanded  as  soon  as  it  was  well  out  in  the  open  channel, 
and  almost  provided  John  Bull  with  another  "other  island." 
And  whereon  the  pier-company's  sordid  commercialism  had 
suggested  the  construction  of  a  Chinese  joss-house,  or  Indian 
bungalow — our  description  is  a  random  one — that  lent  itself,  or 
was  lent  by  the  company,  at  really  an  almost  nominal  figure,  for 

366 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  367 

entertainments  in  the  afternoon  all  through  the  season.  And 
round  this  structure  were  things  desirable  by  all  mankind,  and 
supposed  to  be  desired  by  possessors  of  one  penny  willing  to 
part  with  it.  For  a  penny-in-the-slot  you  could  learn  your  fate 
from  a  Sibyl,  and  repent  of  having  spent  your  penny  on  it.  For 
another  you  could  scent  your  pocket-handkerchief,  and  be  sorry 
you  hadn't  kept  your  penny  for  chocolate.  For  another  you 
could  have  the  chocolate,  and  wish  you  had  waited  and  taken  a 
cigarette.  And  for  another  you  could  take  the  cigarette,  and 
realise  how  ill-assorted  are  the  flavours  of  chocolate  and  the  best 
Virginian  tobacco. 

But  the  pennyworth  that  seemed  the  worthiest  of  its  penny 
was,  no  doubt,  the  old-fashioned  galvanic  battery,  which  shocked 
you  for  a  sixth  part  of  the  smallest  sum  required  by  literature  on 
first  publication.  It  had  brass  handles  you  took  hold  of,  and 
brass  basins  with  unholy  water  in  them  that  made  you  curl  up, 
and  anybody  else  would  do  so  too.  And  there  was  a  bunch  of 
wires  to  push  in,  and  agonize  the  victim  who,  from  motives  not 
easily  understood,  laid  himself  open  to  torture.  And  it  certainly 
said  "whizzy-wizzy-wizz."  But  Gwenny's  description  had  been 
wrong  in  one  point.  For  it  was  yourself,  the  investigator,  not 
the  machine,  that  said  "e-e-e-e!" 

Now  this  machine  was  in  charge  of  a  young  woman,  who  was 
also  the  custodian  of  an  invisible  lady,  who  was  to  be  seen  for  a 
penny  each  person,  children  half-price.  This  appeared  to  be  a 
contradiction  in  terms,  but  public  apathy  accepted  it  without 
cavil.  The  taking  of  this  phenomenon's  gate-money  seemed  to 
be  almost  a  sinecure.  Not  so  the  galvanic  battery,  which  never 
disappointed  any  one.  It  might  disgust,  or  repel,  those  who  had 
had  no  occasion  to  study  this  branch  of  science,  but  it  always 
acted  up  to  its  professions.  Those  investigators  who  declined  to 
have  any  more  never  could  go  away  and  complain  that  they  had 
not  had  enough.  And  no  one  had  ever  been  discontented  with 
its  baneful  results  when  all  the  bundle  of  wires  was  put  in;  indeed, 
the  young  person  in  charge  said  she  had  never  known  any  one 
to  drain  this  cup  of  scientific  experience  to  the  dregs.  "Half- 
way in's  enough  for  most,"  was  her  report  of  human  endurance. 
It  was  a  spirited  little  machine,  though  old-fashioned. 

Miss  Arkwright  and  her  dolly,  accompanied,  as  we  have  hinted, 


368  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

by  her  Nurse  Jane  and  baby,  whose  violent  temper  had  con- 
demned his  perambulator,  and  compelled  his  attendant  to  carry 
him — so  she  said — were  beforehand  at  the  place  and  hour  named. 
For  security  against  possible  disappointment  a  fiction  was  re- 
sorted to  that  dolly  wouldn't  cry  if  her  mamma  talked  seriously 
to  her,  and  it  was  pointed  out  that  Mr.  Fenwick  was  coming,  and 
Mrs.  Fenwick  was  coming,  and  Miss  Nightingale  was  coming, 
and  Dr.  Vereker  was  coming — advantage  being  taken  of  an 
infant's  love  of  vain  repetitions.  But  all  these  four  events 
turned  on  dolly  being  good  and  not  crying,  and  the  reflex  action 
of  this  stipulation  produced  goodness  in  dolly's  mamma,  with 
the  effect  that  she  didn't  roar,  as,  it  seemed,  she  might  otherwise 
have  done. 

Miss  Gwendolen  was,  however,  that  impatient  that  no  dramatic 
subterfuge,  however  skilfully  engineered,  could  be  relied  upon 
to  last.  Fortunately,  a  young  lady  she  recognised,  and  a  gentle- 
man whom  she  did  not  personally  know,  but  had  seen  on  the 
beach,  became  interested  in  baby,  who  took  no  notice  of  them, 
and  hiccupped.  But,  then,  his  eyes  were  too  beady  to  have  any 
human  expression;  perhaps  it  was  more  this  than  a  contempt  for 
vapid  compliment  that  made  him  seem  unsympathetic.  The 
young  lady,  however,  congratulated  him  on  his  personnel  and  on 
the  variety  of  his  attainments;  and  this  interested  Miss  Gwen- 
dolen, who  continued  not  to  roar,  and  presently  volunteered  a 
statement  on  her  own  account. 

"My  mummar  zis  a-comin',  and  Miss  Ninedale  zis  a-comin', 
and  Miss  Ninedale's  mummar  zis  a-comin',  and  .  .  ."  But 
Nurse  Jane  interposed,  on  the  ground  that  the  lady  knew  already 
who  was  coming.  She  had  no  reason  for  supposing  this;  but  a 
general  atmosphere  of  omniscience  among  grown-up  classes  is 
morally  desirable.  It  was,  however,  limited  to  Clause  1.  Miss 
Gwenny  went  on  to  the  consideration  of  Clause  2  without  taking 
a  division. 

"To  see  dolly  danvalised  for  a  penny.  My  mummar  says — 
see — sail — div  me  a  penny.  .  .  ." 

"To  galvanise  dolly?  How  nice  that  will  be! — Isn't  she  a 
dear  little  thing,  Paggy? — And  we're  just  in  time  to  see  it.  Now, 
that  is  nice!"  Observe  Laetitia's  family  name  for  her  husband, 
born  of  Cattley's. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  369 

"Isn't  that  them  coming,  Tish?"  Yes,  it  is.  They  are  con- 
scientiously negotiating  the  turnstile  at  the  pier-entrance,  where 
one  gets  a  ticket  that  lets  you  on  all  day,  and  you  lose  it.  Con- 
scientiously, because  the  pier-company  often  left  its  side-gate 
open,  and  relied  on  public  spirit  to  acquiesce  in  its  turnstile 
without  dispute. 

But  Bradshaw  has  the  misfortune  to  fall  in  Nurse's  good 
opinion.  For  he  asks  who  the  important-looking  party  is,  and 
is  called  to  order. 

"Sh-sh-iii-sh,  love!  Do  take  care!  Gwenny's  mamma — Mrs. 
Chesterfield  Arkwright.  They've  a  house  at  Boxley  Heath — 
friends  of  the  Hugh  Jameses — those  very  high-flying  people." 
This  is  not  a  pleine  voix,  and  a  well-disciplined  Nurse  knows 
better  than  to  hear  it. 

Miss  Gwenny  and  dolly  consent  to  accompany  the  lady  and 
gentleman  to  meet  the  party,  the  former  undertaking  to  point 
out  her  mamma.  "I  sail  sow  you  wiss,"  she  says;  and  then  gives 
descriptive  particulars  of  the  conduct  of  the  galvanic  battery,  and 
forecasts  its  effect  on  dolly. 

"There's  that  dear  little  pet,"  says  Sally;  and  resumes  the 
operation  of  spoiling  the  little  pet  on  the  spot.  She  isn't  sorry 
to  tally  the  pet  (whose  phonetics  we  employ)  "dest  wunced  round 
the  p  on  her  soulders,  only  zis  wunced."  She  is  a  little  silent, 
is  Sally,  and  preoccupied — perhaps  won't  object  to  a  romp  to 
divert  her  thoughts.  Because  she  is  afraid  poor  Prosy  is  in  the 
tentacles  of  the  Octopus.  She  evidently  is  not  in  love  with  him; 
if  she  were  she  would  be  feeling  piqued  at  his  not  being  in  time 
to  the  appointment,  not  fidgeting  about  his  losing  the  fun.  She 
made  some  parade,  at  any  rate,  of  her  misgivings  that  poor  Dr. 
Conrad  had  got  hooked  by  his  Goody,  and  would  be  late.  If  she 
was  piqued  she  concealed  it.  Whichever  it  was,  she  found  it 
congenial  to  "tally"  Miss  Arkwright  on  her  "soulders"  twiced 
round  the  pier-end  before  the  party  arrived  within  range  of  the 
battery.  They  meanwhile — that  is  to  say,  Rosalind  and  her 
husband,  Latitia  and  hers,  with  Sally  and  Gwenny's  mamma — 
lingered  slowly  along  the  pier  listening  to  the  experiences  of  the 
latter,  of  men,  women,  and  things  among  the  right  sort  of 
people. 

"You  really  never  know,  and  one  cannot  be  too  careful.     So 


370  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

much  turns  on  the  sort  of  people  you  let  your  daughter  get 
mixed  up  with.  I'm  sure  Mrs.  Fenwick  will  agree  with  me  that 
Mrs.  Hugh  James  was  right.  You  see,  I've  known  her  from  a 
child,  and  a  more  unworldly  creature  never  breathed.  But  she 
asked  me,  and  I  could  only  say  what  I  did:  'Take  the  child  at 
once  to  Paris  and  Ems  and  Wiesbaden — anywhere  for  a  change. 
Even  a  tradesman  is  better  than  a  professional  man.  In  that 
case  there  may  be  money.  But  nowadays  none  of  the  professions 
pay.  And  their  connexions  are  most  undesirable.'  * 

"Now  7  should  call  that  a  brig."  Thus  Bradshaw,  pursuing 
the  great  controversy.  But  Fenwick  knows  better,  or  thinks  he 
does.  She's  a  brigantine,  and  there  are  sprits'ls  on  both  masts, 
and  only  one  square  sail  on  the  foremast.  He  may  be  right,  for 
anything  we  know.  Anyhow,  her  sheets  are  white  in  the  sun, 
as  she  tacks  down  channel  against  the  west  or  south-west  wind, 
which  has  freshened.  And  she  is  a  glorious  sight  as  she  comes 
in  quite  close  to  the  pier-head,  and  goes  into  stays — (is  that 
right?) — and  her  great  sails  flap  and  swing,  and  a  person  to  whom 
caution  is  unknown,  and  who  cares  for  nothing  in  heaven  or 
earth,  sits  unconcerned  on  a  string  underneath  her  bowsprit,  and 
gets  wet  through  every  time  she  plunges,  doing  something 
nautical  in  connexion  with  her  foresail  overhead.  And  then  she 
leans  over  in  the  breeze,  and  the  white  sheets  catch  it  full — so 
near  you  can  hear  the  boom  click  as  it  swings,  and  the  rattle  of 
the  cordage  as  it  runs  through  the  blocks — and  then  she  gets  her 
way  on  her,  and  shoots  off  through  a  diamond-drench  of  broken 
seas,  and  we  who  can  borrow  the  coastguard's  telescope  can  know 
that  she  is  the  Mary  of  Penzance,  but  are  none  the  wiser.  And 
a  man  stripped  to  the  waist,  who  is  washing  radishes  on  the  poop, 
continues  washing  radishes  unmoved,  and  ignores  all  things  else. 

"As  far  as  the  young  man  himself  goes,  I  believe  there  is  noth- 
ing to  be  said.  But  the  mother  is  quite  unpresentable,  perfectly 
impossible.  And  the  eldest  sister  is  married  to  a  Dissenting 
clergyman — a  very  worthy  man,  no  doubt,  but  not  exactly.  And 
the  girls  are  loud,  etc.,  etc.,  etc."  Miss  Arkwright's  mamma 
ripples  on,  even  as  persons  of  condition  ripple ;  and  Tishy,  whose 
views  in  this  direction  have  undergone  expansion,  manages  to 
forget  how  she  has  done  the  same  herself — not  long  ago,  neither! 
— and  decides  that  the  woman  is  detestable. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  371 

Not  so  her  daughter,  who,  with  Sally  as  guardian  and  dolly  as 
ward,  is  awaiting  the  arrival  of  the  party  at  the  galvanic  battery. 
She  is  yearning  for  the  great  event;  not  for  a  promised  land 
of  jerks  and  spasms  for  herself,  but  for  her  putative  offspring. 
She  encourages  the  latter,  telling  her  not  to  be  pitened  and  kye. 
Dolly  doesn't  seem  apprehensive — shows  great  self-command,  in 
fact. 

But  this  detestable  mother  of  a  lovable  daughter  and  an 
untempting  granddaughter  is  destined  to  become  still  more 
detestable  in  the  eyes  of  the  Julius  Bradshaws  before  she  ex- 
hausts her  topic.  For  as  the  party  draws  near  to  the  scene  of 
scientific  recreation — and  progress  is  slow,  as  she  is  deliberate 
as  well  as  detestable;  and,  of  course,  is  the  pace-maker — she 
climbs  up  to  a  higher  platform,  as  it  were,  for  the  contem- 
plation of  a  lower  deep.  She  assumes,  for  purposes  of  tempo- 
rary handling  of  the  subject,  the  air  of  one  too  far  removed  to 
know  more  about  its  details  than  the  seismograph  at  Greenwich 
knows  about  the  earthquake  in  the  Andes.  A  dim  contem- 
plation of  a  thing  afar — to  be  forgotten  on  the  spot,  after  record 
made. 

"Luckily,  it's  not  so  bad  in  this  case  as — (Gwenny,  you're 
tiring  Miss  Nightingale.  Come  down!) — not  so  bad  in  this  case 
as — (NO,  my  dear!  you  must  wait  for  dolly  to  be  galvanised. 
Come  down  at  once,  and  don't  make  conditions.)" 

"But  I  love  having  her  dearly — do  let  me  keep  her!"  from 
Sally. 

And  from  the  human  creature  on  her  shoulders,  "Miss  Nine- 
dale  says  'No !' " 

"Not  so  bad,  you  were  saying,  as  ...  ?"  Thus  Rosalind,  to 
divert  the  conversation  from  the  child. 

"Oh  dear!  What  was  I  saying?  That  child!  What  plagues 
the  little  things  are!"  The  lady  closes  her  eyes  for  two  seconds 
behind  a  horizontal  gloved  hand,  a  seclusion  to  recollect  in;  then 
continues:  "Oh  yes,  when  it's  a  shopman.  I  dare  say  you've 
heard  of  that  very  painful  case — daughter  of  a  well-known 
Greek  Pr  .  .  ." 

But  the  speaker  has  tact  enough  to  see  her  mistake  from  the 
simultaneous  loud  speech  it  provokes.  Every  one  seems  to  have 
something  vociferous  to  say,  and  all  speak  at  once.  Sally's  con- 


372  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

tribution  is  a  suggestion  that  before  dolly  is  put  to  the  torture 
we  shall  go  into  the  downstairs  place  and  see  the  gentleman 
who's  fishing  catch  a  big  grey  mullet.  It  is  adopted.  Rosalind 
only  remains  upstairs,  and  takes  the  opportunity  to  communi- 
cate the  Julius  Bradshaw  epic  to  Gwenny's  mamma,  who  will  now 
be  more  careful  than  ever  about  the  sort  of  people  you  pick  up  at 
the  seaside  and  drop.  She  puts  these  words  by  in  her  mind,  for 
Gwenny's  papa,  later  on. 

The  gentleman  who  is  to  be  seen  catching  the  big  grey  mullet 
hadn't  caught  it,  so  far — not  when  the  party  arrived  on  the 
strange  middle-deck  of  the  pier  the  water  reaches  at  high  tide, 
and  persuades  occasional  molluscs  to  grow  on  the  floor  of,  with 
promises  of  a  bath  next  month.  The  green  reflected  light  from 
the  endless  rise  and  fall  of  the  waves  Gwenny  could  see  (without 
getting  down)  through  the  floor-gaps,  seemed  to  be  urging  the 
fisher-gentleman  to  give  it  up,  and  pointing  out  that  the  grey 
mullet  was  down  here,  and  didn't  mean  to  be  caught.  But  he 
paid  no  attention,  and  only  went  on  doing  all  the  things  that 
fishers  do.  He  ascribed  the  fishes'  reluctance  to  bite  to  the  sort 
of  sky,  and  not  to  common-sense  on  their  part.  He  tried  the 
other  side  instead.  He  lost  his  worm,  and  blamed  him  for  going 
off  the  hook — which  he  would  have  done  himself,  and  he  knew  it! 
He  believed,  honestly,  that  a  fish  of  fabulous  dimensions  had 
thought  seriously  of  biting,  and  would  have  bitten,  only  you  got 
in  the  light,  or  made  a  noise. 

But  there  was  no  noise  to  speak  of,  really,  except  the  clunk- 
clunk  of  one  or  two  moored  rowboats  down  below,  and  the 
sh-r-r-r-r-p  (if  that  spells  it)  of  their  corrugated  plank-sides,  as 
they  dipped  and  dripped  alternately.  They  were  close  to  the 
bottom  flight  of  stairs,  whose  lowest  step  was  left  forlorn  in  the 
air,  and  had  to  be  jumped  off  when  a  real  spring-tide  came  that 
knew  its  business. 

Gwenny's  remark,  "Ze  man  is  fissin',"  seemed  to  point  to  an 
incubation  of  an  idea,  familiar  to  maturer  life,  that  fishing  is 
more  truly  a  state  than  an  action.  But  the  addendum — that  he 
didn't  cass  any  fiss — betrayed  her  inexperience.  Maturity  does 
not  call  attention  to  ill-success;  or,  if  it  does,  it  lays  it  at  the  door 
of  the  fish. 

"What  a  jolly  header  one  could  have  from  here!     No  railings 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  373 

or  anything.  No — ducky!  I  won't  put  you  down  to  look  over 
the  edge.  That's  not  a  thing  for  little  girls  to  do." 

"You'd  never  get  up  again,  Sarah.  You'd  have  to  swim 
ashore." 

"One  could  swim  round  the  steps,  Jeremiah — at  least,  accord- 
ing to  the  tide.  It's  slack  water  now." 

"I  wish,  Mr.  Fenwick — (so  does  Julius) — that  you  would  make 
that  girl  reasonable.  She'll  drown  herself  before  she's  done." 

"I  know  she  will,  Mrs.  Paganini.  Sure  and  certain!  Nobody 
can  stop  her.  But  Vereker's  going  to  bring  her  to." 

"Where  is  the  doctor,  Tish?  Didn't  he  say  he  was  coming?" 
This  was  Bradshaw.  He  usually  says  things  to  his  wife,  and 
leaves  publication  to  her. 

"Of  course  he  said  he  was  coming.  I  wonder  if  anything's  the 
matter?" 

"Oh,  no!  It's  his  ma!  The  Goody's  put  an  embargo  on  him, 
and  kept  him  at  home.  Poor  Prosy!"  Sally  is  vexed,  too.  But 
observe! — she  knows  perfectly  well  that  nothing  but  the  Goody 
would  have  kept  Prosy  from  his  appointment. 

No  one  in  particular,  but  every  one  more  or  less,  supposes  that 
now  we  must  go  back  for  dolly  to  be  galvanised,  Tishy  rather 
reluctantly,  for  she  does  not  share  her  husband's  indifference 
about  what  the  detestable  one  above  says  on  the  subject  of  shop- 
men; Miss  Arkwright  greedily,  being  reminded  of  a  higher  object 
in  life  than  mere  grey  mullet  catching.  She,  however,  ascribes 
her  avidity  to  dolly,  calling  on  public  credulity  to  believe  that  the 
latter  has  spoken  to  that  effect. 

The  arrangement  of  dolly  in  connexion  with  the  two  brass 
handles  offers  difficulties,  but  a  felicitous  solution  is  discovered, 
for  not  only  will  dolly  remain  in  contact  with  both  if  her  arms 
are  thrust  inside  them,  but  insomuch  as  her  sleeves  are  stiff  and 
expansive,  and  require  a  perceptible  pull  to  withdraw  them,  will 
remain  suspended  in  mid-air  without  further  support,  to  enjoy 
the  rapture  or  endure  the  torture  of  the  current,  as  may  prove 
to  be  the  case.  From  this  arises  an  advantage — namely,  that 
her  mamma  will  be  able  to  give  her  attention  to  the  regulator, 
and  shift  the  wire  bundle  in  and  out,  with  a  due  regard  to  dolly's 
powers  of  endurance. 

What  little  things  the  lives  of  the  folk  in  this  story  have  turned 


374  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

on!  Now,  suppose  Gwenny  had  never  been  allowed  to  take 
charge  of  that  regulator!  However,  this  is  anticipation. 

When  dolly  had  endured  unmoved  the  worst  that  science  could 
inflict,  nothing  would  satisfy  Miss  Gwenny  but  that  every  one  else 
should  take  hold  in  a  circle,  as  on  a  previous  occasion,  and  that 
she  should  retain  control  of  the  regulator.  The  experiment  was 
tried  as  proposed,  all  present  joining  in  it  except  Mrs.  Arkwright, 
who  excused  herself  owing  to  the  trouble  of  taking  her  gloves  off. 
Including  nurse,  there  were  six  persons.  However,  as  nurse 
couldn't  abide  it,  almost  before  it  had  begun  to  say  whizzy-wizzy- 
wizz,  this  number  was  reduced  to  five. 

"Keep  your  eye  on  the  kid,  my  dear,"  said  Fenwick,  address- 
ing the  presiding  young  lady  in  his  easy-going  way;  "don't  let  her 
put  it  on  all  at  once.  Are  you  ready,  Sarah?  You  ready,  Mrs. 
Paganini?  All  right — fire  away!" 

The  young  lady  in  charge  kept  a  careful  hand  near  Miss 
Gwenny's,  who  was  instructed  or  guided  to  increase  the  current 
gradually.  Her  attitude  was  docile  and  misleading. 

"Go  on — a  little  more — yes,  a  little  more.  .  .  .  -No,  that's 
enough!  .  .  .  Oh,  what  nonsense!  that's  nothing!  .  .  .  Oh, 
Sally,  do  let  go!  .  .  .  Oh,  Tishy,  what  a  goose  you  are!  That's 
nothing.  .  .  .  E-ow!  It's  horrible.  I  won't  have  any  more  of 
it."  The  chorus  of  exclamations,  which  you  may  allot  at  choice, 
ended  in  laughter  as  the  galvanised  circle  broke  up. 

"Well,  you  are  a  lot  of  weak-kneed  .  .  .  conductivities,"  said 
Fenwick,  feeling  for  the  word.  "That  was  nothing,  as  Sarah 
says." 

"Look  here,"  suggested  Sally.  "Me  get  between  you  two 
men,  and  Gwenny  stick  it  in  full  up."  This  was  done,  and  Sally 
heroically  endured  the  "full  up"  current,  which,  as  you  doubt- 
less are  aware,  increases  in  viciousness  as  it  has  fewer  and  fewer 
victims.  But  she  wasn't  sorry  when  it  was  over,  for  all  that. 

"You  and  I  could  take  it  full  up,"  said  Fenwick  to  Bradshaw, 
who  assented.  But  Paganini  evidently  didn't  like  it  when  it 
came  to  three-quarters.  Also,  his  wife  said  to  him,  "You'll  spoil 
your  fingering,  Julius." 

Fenwick  seemed  to  think  them  all  over-sensitive.  "I  could 
stand  that  by  myself,"  said  he,  and  took  both  handles. 

But  just  at  this  moment  a  strange  event  happened.     Some- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  375 

body  actually  applied  to  see  the  invisible  lady.  The  eyes  of  the 
damsel  in  charge  were  for  one  moment  withdrawn  from  Miss 
Gwenny,  who  promptly  seized  the  opportunity  to  thrust  in  the 
regulator  "full  up." 

Fenwick  wasn't  going  to  cry  for  mercy — not  he!  But  his  lips 
clenched  and  his  eyes  glared,  and  his  hands  shook.  "How  can 
you  be  such  a  goose,  Jeremiah?"  said  Sally,  who  was  standing 
close  by  the  battery,  opposite  to  Gwenny.  She  thrust  back  the 
regulator,  and  put  an  end  to  Fenwick's  excruciations. 

He  said,  "What  did  you  do  that  for,  Sarah?  I  could  have 
stood  it  for  six  months." 

And  Sally  replied:  "For  shame,  you  wicked  story!  And  after 
you'd  been  electrocuted  once,  too !" 

Fenwick  burst  into  a  great  laugh,  and  exclaimed,  "What  on 
earth  are  we  all  torturing  ourselves  for?  Do  let's  go  and  get 
some  tea."  And  then  carried  Gwenny  on  his  shoulders  to  the 
pier-entrance,  where  he  delivered  her  to  her  proprietors,  and  then 
they  all  sauntered  teawards,  laughing  and  chatting. 

Rosalind  thought  she  had  never  seen  Gerry  in  such  health  and 
spirits.  On  their  way  up  to  the  house  they  passed  Punch,  lean- 
ing over  the  footlights  to  rejoice  in  his  iniquity.  Few  persons 
of  healthy  sympathies  can  pass  Punch,  and  these  only  under  the 
strongest  temptation,  such  as  tea.  Rosalind  and  Laetitia  and  her 
husband  belonged  to  the  latter  class,  but  Fenwick  and  Sally 
elected  to  see  the  immortal  drama  to  a  close.  It  lasted  nearly 
through  the  remainder  of  Fenwick's  cigar,  and  then  they  came 
away,  reluctant,  and  wanting  more  of  the  same  sort. 

It  was  then  that  Sally's  stepfather  said  a  rather  singular  thing 
to  her — a  thing  she  remembered  afterwards,  though  she  noticed 
it  but  slightly  at  the  time.  She  had  said  to  him: 

"Codling  and  Short  will  be  quite  rich  men!  What  a  lot  of 
money  you've  given  them,  Jeremiah!" 

And  he  had  replied:  "Don't  they  deserve  it?" 

They  had  then  walked  on  together  up  the  road,  he  taking  her 
arm  in  his  hand,  as  is  the  way  nowadays,  but  saying  nothing. 
Presently  he  said,  as  he  threw  away  the  very  last  end  of  the 
cigar: 

"It  was  the  first  lesson  of  my  early  boyhood  in  retributive  in- 
justice. It's  a  poor  heart  that  never  rejoices  at  Punch." 


376  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

It  was  the  first  time  Sally  had  ever  heard  him  speak  of  his  boy- 
hood except  as  a  thing  he  had  forgotten. 

.....•• 

Much,  so  much,  of  this  chapter  is  made  up  of  matter  so  trifling. 
Was  it  worth  recording?  The  chronicler  might  plead  again  as 
excuse  his  temptation  to  linger  over  the  pleasant  hours  it  tells  of, 
the  utter  freedom  of  its  actors  from  care,  and  his  reluctance  to 
record  their  sequel.  But  a  better  apology  for  his  prolixity  and 
detail  would  be  found  in  the  wonder  felt  by  those  actors  when  in 
after-life  they  looked  back  and  recalled  them  one  by  one;  and 
the  way  each  memory  linked  itself,  in  a  way  unsuspected  at  the 
time,  with  an  absolutely  unanticipated  future.  For  even  Rosa- 
lind, with  all  her  knowledge  of  the  past,  had  no  guess,  for  all  her 
many  misgivings  and  apprehensions,  of  the  way  that  things 
would  go.  Never  had  she  been  freer  from  a  sense  of  the  shadow 
of  a  coming  cloud  than  when  she  looked  out  from  the  window 
while  the  tea  she  had  just  made  was  mellowing,  and  saw  her 
husband  and  daughter  coming  through  the  little  garden  gate, 
linked  together  and  in  the  best  of  spirits. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

OF  THE  REV.  SAMUEL  HERRICK  AND  A  SUNSET.  THE  WEDGE'S  PROGRESS. 
THE  BARON  AGAIN,  AND  THE  FLY-WHEEL.  HOW  FENWICK  KNEW  HIS 
NAME  RIGHT,  AND  ROSALIND  DIDN'T.  HOW  SALLY  AND  HER  MEDICAL 
ADVISER  WERE  NOT  QUITE  WET  THROUGH.  HOW  HE  HAD  MADE  HER 
THE  CONFIDANTE  OF  A  LOVE-AFFAIR.  OF  A  GOOD  OPENING  IN  SPECIAL- 
ISM. MORE  PROGRESS  OF  THE  WEDGE.  HOW  GERRY  NEARLY  MADE 
DINNER  LATE 

IT  was  quite  true,  as  Sally  had  surmised,  that  poor  Prosy  had 
been  entangled  in  the  meshes  of  his  Octopus.  But  Sally  had  also 
recorded  her  conviction  that  he  would  turn  up  at  tea.  He  did 
*o,  with  apologies.  You  see,  he  hadn't  liked  to  come  away  while 
his  mother  was  asleep,  in  case  she  should  ask  for  him  when  she 
woke  up,  and  she  slept  rather  longer  than  usual. 

"She  may  have  been  trying  to  do  too  much  lately,"  said  he, 
with  a  beautiful  faith  in  some  mysterious  activities  practised  by 
the  Goody  unseen.  Sally  cultivated  this  faith  also,  to  the  best 
of  her  ability,  but  she  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  embraced  it. 
The  way  in  which  she  and  her  mother  lent  themselves  to  it  was, 
nevertheless,  edifying. 

"You  mustn't  let  her  overdo  it,  doctor,"  said  Rosalind,  seri- 
ously believing  herself  truthful.  And  Sally,  encouraged  by  her 
evident  earnestness,  added,  "And  make  her  take  plenty  of  nour- 
ishment. That's  half  the  battle." 

Whereupon  Laetitia,  swept,  as  it  were,  into  the  vortex  of  a 
creed,  found  it  in  her  to  say,  "As  long  as  she  doesn't  get  low." 
It  was  not  vigorous,  and  lacked  completion,  but  it  reassured  and 
enforced.  By  the  time  the  little  performance  was  done  every 
one  in  the  room  believed  that  Mrs.  Vereker  did  down  the  stairs, 
or  scoured  out  saucepans,  or  at  least  dusted.  Even  her  son 
believed,  so  forcibly  was  the  unanimity.  Perhaps  there  was  a 
taint  of  the  incredulous  in  the  minds  of  Fenwick  and  Bradshaw. 
But  each  thought  the  other  was  heart-whole,  and  neither  suspected 
himself  of  insincerity. 

377 


378  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Sally  was  curious  to  know  exactly  what  lines  the  Octopus  had 
operated  on.  That  would  do  later,  though.  She  would  get  Prosy 
by  himself,  and  make  him  tell  her  all  about  it.  In  the  course  of 
time  tea  died  a  natural  death.  Fenwick  indulged  in  a  yawn  and 
a  great  shake,  and  remembered  that  he  had  no  end  of  letters  to 
answer.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Julius  Bradshaw  suddenly  thought,  for 
no  reasonable  reason,  that  they  ought  to  be  getting  back.  But 
they  didn't  really  go  home.  They  went  for  a  walk  landward,  as 
it  was  so  windy,  instead — remember  that  they  were  only  in  the 
third  week  of  their  honeymoon!  Sally,  with  Talleyrand-like 
diplomacy,  achieved  that  she  and  Dr.  Conrad  should  go  for 
another  walk  in  another  direction.  The  sea  was  getting  up  and 
the  glass  was  going  down,  and  it  would  be  fun  to  go  and  see 
the  waves  break  over  the  jetty.  So  said  Sally,  and  Dr.  Conrad 
thought  so  too,  unequivocally.  They  walked  away  in  the  big 
sea-wind,  fraught  with  a  great  inheritance  from  the  Atlan- 
tic of  cool  warmth  and  dry  moisture.  And  if  you  don't 
know  what  that  means,  you  know  mighty  little  of  the  ocean  in 
question. 

Eosalind  watched  them  through  the  window,  closed  perforce, 
and  saw  them  disappear  round  the  flagstaff  with  the  south  cone 
hoisted,  holding  their  heads  on  to  all  appearance.  She  said  to 
herself:  "Foolish  fellow,  why  can't  he  speak?"  And  her  husband 
answered  either  her  thought  or  her  words — though  he  could 
hardly  have  heard  them  as  he  sat  driving  his  pen  furiously 
through  letters — with:  "He'll  have  to  confess  up,  Rosey,  you'll 
see,  before  he  goes." 

She  made  no  reply ;  but,  feeling  a  bit  tired,  lay  down  to  rest  on 
the  sofa.  And  so  powerful  was  the  sea  air,  and  the  effect  of  a 
fair  allowance  of  exercise,  that  she  fell  into  a  doze  in  spite  of  the 
intensely  wakeful  properties  of  Mrs.  Lobjoit's  horsehair  sofa, 
which  only  a  corrugated  person  could  stop  on  without  a  main- 
tained effort,  so  that  sound  sleep  was  impossible.  She  never 
became  quite  unconscious  of  the  scratching  pen  and  the  moaning  ' 
wind;  so,  as  she  did  not  sleep,  yet  did  not  want  to  wake,  she  re- 
mained hovering  on  the  borderland  of  dreams.  One  minute  she 
thought  she  was  thinking,  sanely,  about  Sally  and  her  silent 
lover — always  uppermost  in  her  thoughts — the  next,  she  was 
alive  to  the  absurdity  of  some  dream-thing  one  of  them  had 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  379 

suddenly  changed  to,  unnoticed.  Once,  half  awake,  she  was 
beginning  to  consider,  seriously,  whether  she  could  not  legiti- 
mately approach  the  Octopus  on  the  subject,  but  only  to  find,  the 
moment  after,  that  the  Octopus  (while  remaining  the  same)  had 
become  the  chubby  little  English  clergyman  that  had  married 
her  to  Gerry  at  Umballa,  twenty  years  ago.  Then  she  thought 
she  would  wake,  and  took  steps  towards  doing  it;  but,  as  ill-luck 
would  have  it,  she  began  to  speak  before  she  had  achieved  her 
purpose.  And  the  result  was:  "Do  you  remember  the  Reverend 

Samuel  Herrick,  Gerry,  at  Umb Oh  dear!  I'm  not 

awake.  ...  I  was  talking  nonsense."  Gerry  laughed. 

"Wake  up,  love!"  said  he.  "Do  your  fine  intelligence  justice! 
What  was  it  you  said?  Reverend  Samuel  who?" 

"I  forget,  darling.  I  was  dreaming."  Then,  with  a  nettle- 
grasping  instinct,  as  one  determined  to  flinch  from  nothing, 
"Reverend  Samuel  Herrick.  What  did  you  think  I  said?" 

"Reverend  Samuel  Herrick  or  Meyrick.  .  .  .  'Not  negotiable.' 
I  don't  mean  the  Reverend  Sam,  whoever  he  is,  but  the  payee 
whose  account  I'm  enriching."  He  folded  the  cheque  he  had 
been  writing  into  its  letter  and  enveloped  it.  But  he  paused  on 
the  brink  of  its  gummed  edge,  looking  over  it  at  Rosalind,  who 
was  still  engaged  getting  quite  awake.  "I  know  the  name  well 
enough.  He's  some  chap!  I  expect  you  saw  him  in  the 
'Chronicle.' " 

"Very  likely,  darling!  He  must  be  some  chap,  when  you  come 
to  think  of  it."  She  says  this  slightly,  as  a  mere  rounding-off 
speech.  Then  goes  behind  her  husband's  chair  and  kisses  him 
over  his  shoulder  as  he  directs  the  envelope. 

"Marmaduke,  Copestake,  Dickinson,  and  Humphreys,"  says  he, 
as  he  writes  the  names.  "Now  I  call  that  a  firm-and-a-half.  Old 
Broad  Street,  E.G.  That's  all! — as  far  as  he  goes.  Now,  how 
about  Puckeridge,  Limited  ?" 

"Don't  write  any  more,  Gerry  dear;  you'll  spoil  your  eyes. 
Come  and  look  at  the  sunset.  Come  along!"  For  a  blood-red 
forecast  of  storm  in  the  west,  surer  than  the  surest  human 
barometer,  is  blazing  through  the  window  that  cannot  be  opened 
for  the  blow,  and  turning  the  shell-work  rabbit  and  the  story  of 
Goliath  into  gold  and  jewels.  The  sun  is  glancing  through  a  rift 
in  the  cloud-bank,  to  say  good-night  to  the  winds  and  seas,  and 


380  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

wish  them  joy  of  the  high  old  time  they  mean  to  have  in  his 
absence,  in  the  dark. 

The  lurid  level  rays  that  make  an  indescribable  glory  of 
Rosalind's  halo-growth  of  hair  as  Gerry  sees  it  against  the  win- 
dow, have  no  ill-boding  in  them  for  either — no  more,  that  is, 
than  always  has  belonged  to  a  rough  night  closing  over  the  sea, 
and  will  do  so  always  until  the  sea  is  ice  again  on  a  planet  sick 
to  death.  As  he  draws  her  arm  round  his  neck  and  she  his  round 
her  waist,  and  they  glance  at  each  other  in  the  flaming  glow,  there 
is  no  thought  in  either  of  any  ill  impending  for  themselves. 

"I  wish  Sarah  were  here  to  see  you  now,  Rosey." 

"So  should  I,  love!  Only  she  would  see  you  too.  And  then 
she'd  make  you  vainer  than  you  are  already.  All  men  are  patches 
of  Vanity.  But  I  forgive  you."  She  kisses  him  slightly  in 
confirmation.  They  certainly  were  a  wonderful  sight,  the  two 
of  them,  a  minute  ago,  when  the  light  was  at  its  best.  Yes! — 
they  wish  Sally  had  been  there,  each  on  the  other's  account.  It 
was  difficult  to  say  which  of  the  two  had  thought  of  Sally  first. 
Both  had  this  habit  of  registering  the  rapport  of  everything  to 
Sally  as  a  first  duty. 

But  a  sunset  glow,  like  this  one,  lasts,  maybe,  little  longer  than 
a  highest  song-note  may  be  sustained.  It  was  to  die.  But 
Rosalind  and  Gerry  watched  it  out.  His  cheek  was  resting  in 
the  thick  mass  of  soft  gold,  just  moving  slightly  to  be  well  aware 
of  it.  The  sun-ray  touched  it,  last  of  anything  in  the  room,  and 
died.  .  .  . 

"What's  that,  dear  love?  Why?  .  .  ."  It  was  Rosalind  that 
spoke. 

"Nothing,  dearest!  No,  nothing!  .  .  .  Indeed,  nothing  at 
all!" 

"Gerry,  what  was  it?" 

"What  was  what,  dear?" 

"What  made  you  leave  off  so  suddenly?" 

For  the  slightly  intermittent  movement  of  his  cheek  on  her 
hair — what  hairy  thing  is  there  that  does  not  love  to  be  stroked? 
— had  stopped;  and  his  hand  that  held  hers  had  slipped  from  it, 
and  rested  for  a  moment  on  his  own  forehead. 

"It's  gone  now.  It  was  a  sort  of  recurrence.  I  haven't  been 
having  them  lately.  .  .  ." 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  381 

"Come  and  sit  down,  love.  There,  now,  don't  fidget!  What 
was  it  about?"  Does  he  look  pale? — thinks  Rosalind — or  is  it 
only  the  vanished  glow? 

He  is  uncommunicative.  Suppose  they  go  out  for  a  turn  before 
dinner,  he  suggests.  They  can  walk  down  to  the  jetty,  to  meet 
Sarah  and  her  medical  adviser.  Soon  said,  soon  settled.  Ten 
minutes  more,  and  they  are  on  their  way  to  the  fisher  dwellings: 
experiencing  three-quarters  of  a  gale,  it  appears,  on  the  testimony 
of  an  Ancient  Mariner  in  a  blue  and  white-striped  woollen  shirt, 
who  knows  about  things. 

"That  was  very  queer,  that  recurrence!"  Thus  Gerry,  after 
leaving  the  Ancient  Mariner.  "It  was  just  as  the  little  edge  of 
the  sun  went  behind  the  bank.  And  what  do  you  think  my  mind 
hooked  it  on  to,  of  all  things  in  the  world?"  Rosalind  couldn't 
guess,  of  course.  "Why,  a  big  wheel  I  was  trying  to  stop,  that 
went  slowly — slowly — like  the  sun  vanishing.  And  then  just 
as  the  sun  went  it  stopped." 

"Was  there  anything  else?"  Entire  concealment  of  alarm  is 
all  Rosalind  can  attend  to. 

"No  end  of  things,  all  mixed  up  together.  One  thing  very 
funny.  A  great  big  German  chap.  ...  I  say,  Rosalind!" 

"What,  Gerry  darling?" 

"Do  you  recollect,  when  we  were  in  Switzerland,  up  at  that  last 
high-up  place,  Seelisberg — Sonnenberg — do  you  remember  the 
great  fat  Baron  that  gave  me  those  cigars,  and  sang?" 

"Remember  the  Baron?  Of  course  I  do.  Perfectly!"  Rosa- 
lind contrived  a  laugh.  "Was  he  in  it?"  Perhaps  this  was 
rash.  But  then,  not  to  say  it  would  have  been  cowardice,  when 
it  was  on  her  tongue-tip.  Let  the  nettle  be  grasped. 

"He  was  in  it,  singing  and  all.  But  the  whole  thing  was  mixed 
up  and  queer.  It  all  went,  quite  suddenly.  And  I  should  have 
lost  him  out  of  it,  as  one  loses  a  dream,  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
seeing  him  in  Switzerland.  It  was  something  to  hold  on  by.  Do 
you  understand?" 

"I  think  I  do.  7  had  forgotten  what  I  was  dreaming  about 
when  I  woke  on  the  sofa  and  talked  that  nonsense.  But  I  hold 
on  to  the  name,  for  all  that." 

"But  then  that  wasn't  a  real  person,  the  Reverend — what  was 
he? — Herrick  or  Derrick." 


382  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Rosalind  passed  the  point  by.  "Gerry  darling!  I  want  you 
to  do  as  I  tell  you.  Don't  worry  your  head  about  it,  but  keep 
quiet.  If  memory  is  coming  back  to  you,  it  will  come  all  the 
quicker  for  letting  your  mind  rest.  Let  it  come  gradually." 

"I  see  what  you  mean.  You  think  it  was  really  a  recollection 
of  B.C?" 

"I  think  so.     Why  should  it  not?" 

"But  it's  all  gone  clean  away  again!  And  I  can't  remember 
anything  of  it  at  all — and  there  was  heaps!" 

"Never  mind!  If  it  was  real  it  will  come  back.  Wait  and  be 
patient!" 

Eosalind's  mind  laid  down  this  rule  for  itself — to  think  and 
act  exactly  as  though  there  had  been  nothing  to  fear.  Even  if 
all  the  past  had  been  easy  to  face  it  would  have  shrunk  from 
suggestions.  So  thought  she  to  herself,  perhaps  with  a  little 
excusable  self-deception.  Otherwise  the  natural  thing  would 
have  been  to  repeat  to  him  all  the  Baron's  story. 

No!  She  would  not  say  a  word,  or  give  a  hint.  If  it  was  all 
to  come  back  to  him,  it  would  come  back.  If  not,  she  could  not 
bring  it  back;  and  she  might,  in  the  attempt  to  do  so,  merely 
plunge  his  injured  mind  into  more  chaotic  confusion.  Much 
safer  to  do  nothing! 

But  why  this  sudden  stirring  of  his  memory,  just  now  of  all 
times?  Had  anything  unusual  happened  lately?  Naturally,  the 
inquiry  sent  her  mind  back,  to  yesterday  first,  then  to  the  day 
before.  No! — there  was  nothing  there.  Then  to  generalities. 
Was  it  the  sea  bathing? — the  sea  air?  And  then  on  a  sudden  she 
thought  of  the  thing  nearest  at  hand,  that  she  should  have 
thought  of  at  first.  Yes! — she  would  ask  Dr.  Conrad  about  that: 
Why  hadn't  she  thought  of  that  before — that  galvanic  battery? 

Meanwhile,  despite  her  injunctions  to  her  husband  to  wait 
and  be  patient,  his  mind  kept  harking  back  on  this  curious  recol- 
lection. Luckily,  so  it  seemed  to  her — at  any  rate  for  the  present 
— he  did  not  seem  to  recall  the  Baron's  recognition  of  himself, 
or  to  connect  it  with  this  illusion  or  revival.  He  appeared  to 
recollect  the  Baron's  personality,  and  his  liberality  with  cigars, 
but  little  else.  If  he  was  to  be  reminded  of  this,  it  must  be  after 
she  had  talked  over  it  with  Vereker. 

They  struggled  with  the  weather  along  the  seaward  face  of  the 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  383 

little  old  fisher-town.  The  great  wind  was  blowing  the  tan-laden 
atmosphere  of  the  nets  and  the  all-pervading  smell  of  tar  land- 
ward; and  substituting  flecks  of  driven  foam,  that  it  forced  to 
follow  landward  too,  for  all  they  tried  to  stop  and  rest.  The 
population  was  mostly  employed  getting  the  boats  up  as  close  to 
the  houses  as  practice  permitted,  and  the  capstans  were  all  a- 
creak  with  the  strain;  and  one  shrieked  for  a  dab  of  lard,  and 
got  it,  just  as  they  passed.  The  man  with  Bessie  and  the  anchor 
on  his  arms — for  it  was  his — paused  in  his  rotations  with  one 
elbow  on  his  lever,  and  one  foot  still  behind  the  taut  cable  he 
was  crossing.  His  free  hand  saluted;  and  then,  his  position 
being  defined,  he  was  placed  on  a  moral  equality  with  his 
superiors,  and  could  converse.  The  old-fashioned  hat-touch, 
now  dying  out,  is  just  as  much  a  protest  against  the  way  social 
order  parts  man  from  man  as  it  is  an  acknowledgment  of  its 
necessity. 

The  lover  of  Bessie  and  Elinor  and  Kate  was  disposed  to  ignore 
the  efforts  of  the  wind.  There  might,  he  said,  be  a  bit  of  sea 
on,  come  two  or  three  in  the  marn'n — at  the  full  of  the  tide. 
The  wind  might  get  up  a  bit,  if  it  went  round  suth'ard.  The 
wind  was  nothing  in  itself — it  was  the  direction  it  came  from; 
it  got  a  bad  character  from  imputed  or  vicarious  vice.  It  would 
be  a  bit  rough  to  get  a  boat  off — the  lady  might  get  a  wet- 
ting. ...  At  which  point  Rosalind  interrupted.  Nothing  was 
further  from  her  thoughts,  she  said,  than  navigation  in  any  form. 
But  had  the  speaker  seen  her  daughter  go  by — the  young  lady  that 
BWam?  For  Sally  was  famous.  He  hadn't,  himself,  but  maybe 
young  Benjamin  had.  Who,  taking  leave  to  speak  from  this, 
announced  frankly  that  he  had  seen  a  young  lady,  in  company 
with  her  sweetheart,  go  by  nigh  an  hour  agone.  The  tattooed 
one  diluted  her  sweetheart  down  to  "her  gentleman"  reluctantly. 
In  his  land,  and  the  one  there  would  soon  be  for  the  freckled  and 
blue-eyed  Benjamin,  there  was  no  such  artificial  nonsense.  Per- 
haps some  sense  of  this  showed  itself  in  the  way  he  resumed  his 
work.  "Now,  young  Benjamin — a-action!"  said  he;  and  the 
two  threw  themselves  again  against  the  pole  of  the  mollified 
capstan. 

If  Rosalind  fancied  this  little  incident  had  put  his  previous 
experience  out  of  her  husband's  mind  she  was  mistaken.  He 


384  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

said,  as  they  passed  on  in  the  direction  of  the  jetty,  "I  think 
I  should  like  to  wind  up  capstans.  It  would  suit  me  down  to 
the  ground."  But  then  became  thoughtful;  and,  just  as  they 
were  arriving  at  the  jetty,  showed  that  his  mind  had  run  back 
by  asking  suddenly,  "What  was  the  fat  Baron's  name?" 

"Diedrich  Kammerkreutz."  Eosalind  gave  him  her  nearest 
recollection,  seeing  nothing  to  be  gained  by  doing  otherwise. 
Any  concealment,  too,  the  chances  were,  would  make  matters 
worse  instead  of  better. 

"It  was  Kreutzkammer,  in  my — dream  or  whatever  you  call 
it."  They  stopped  and  looked  at  each  other,  and  Kosalind  re- 
plied, "It  was  Kreutzkammer.  Oh  dear!"  rather  as  one  who  had 
lost  breath  from  some  kind  of  blow. 

He  saw  her  distress  instantly,  and  was  all  alive  to  soothe  it. 
"Don't  be  frightened,  darling  love!"  he  cried,  and  then  his  great 
good-humoured  laugh  broke  into  the  tenderness  of  his  speech, 
without  spoiling  it.  He  was  so  like  Gerry,  the  boy  that  rode 
away  that  day  in  the  dog-cart,  when  there  was  "only  mamma  for 
the  girl." 

"But  when  all's  said  and  done,"  said  she,  harking  back  for  a 
reprieve,  "perhaps  you  only  recollected  Sonnenberg  in  your  dream 
better  than  I  did  .  .  .  just  now.  .  .  ."  She  hung  fire  of  repeat- 
ing the  name  Herrick. 

"Ach  zo,"  he  answered,  teutonically  for  the  moment,  from 
association  with  the  Baron.  "But  suppose  it  all  true,  dearest, 
and  that  I'm  going  to  come  to  life  again,  what  does  it  matter? 
It  can't  alter  us,  that  I  can  see.  Could  anything  that  you  can 
imagine?  I  should  be  Gerry  for  you,  and  you  would  be  Rosey 
for  me,  to  the  end  of  it."  Her  assent  had  a  mere  echo  of  hesita- 
tion. But  he  detected  it,  and  went  on:  "Unless,  you  mean,  I 
remembered  the  hypothetical  wife?  .  .  ." 

"Ye— es !— partly." 

"Well!  I  tell  you  honestly,  Rosey  darling,  if  I  do,  I  shall  keep 
her  to  myself.  A  plaguing,  intrusive  female — to  come  between 
its.  But  there's  no  such  person!"  At  which  they  both  laughed, 
remembering  the  great  original  non-exister.  But  even  here  was 
a  little  thorn.  For  Mrs.  Harris  brought  back  the  name  the 
Baron  had  known  Gerry  by.  He  did  not  seem  to  have  resumed 
it  in  his  dream. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  385 

The  jetty  ran  a  little  way  out  to  sea.  Thus  phraseology  in 
use.  It  might  have  reconsidered  itself,  and  said  that  the  jetty 
had  at  some  very  remote  time  run  out  to  sea  and  stopped  there. 
Ever  since,  the  sea  had  broken  over  it  at  high  tides,  and  if  you 
cared  at  all  about  your  clothes  you  wouldn't  go  to  the  end  of  it, 
if  you  were  me.  Because  the  salt  gets  into  them  and  spoils  the 
dye.  Besides,  you  have  to  change  everything. 

There  was  a  dry  place  at  the  end  of  the  jetty,  and  along  the 
edge  of  the  dry  place  were  such  things  as  cables  go  round  and 
try  hard  to  draw,  as  we  drew  the  teeth  of  our  childhood  with 
string.  But  they  fail  always,  although  their  pulls  are  never 
irresolute.  On  two  of  these  sat  Sally  and  the  doctor  in  earnest 
conversation. 

Rosalind  and  her  husband  looked  at  each  other  and  said,  "No!" 
This  might  have  been  rendered,  "Matters  are  no  forwarder."     It 
connected   itself   (without   acknowledgment)   with  the   distance 
apart  of  the  two  cable-blocks.     Never  mind;  let  them  alone! 
"Are  you  going  to  sit  there  till  the  tide  goes  down?" 
"Oh,  is  that  you?    \Ve  didn't  see  you  coming." 
"You'll  have  to  look  sharp,  or  you'll  be  wet  through.  .  .  ." 
"No,  we  shan't!    You  only  have  to  wait  a  minute  and  get  in 
between.  .  .  ." 

Easier  said  than  done!  A  big  wave,  that  was  just  in  time  to 
overhear  this  conversation  imperfectly,  thought  it  would  like  to 
wet  Sally  through,  and  leaped  against  the  bulwark  of  the  jetty. 
But  it  spent  itself  in  a  huge  torrential  deluge  while  Sally  waited 
a  minute.  A  friend  followed  it,  but  made  a  poor  figure  by  com- 
parison. Then  Sally  got  in  between,  followed  by  the  doctor.  .  .  . 
Well!  they  were  really  not  so  very  wet,  after  all!  Sally  was 
worst,  as  she  was  too  previous.  She  got  implicated  in  the  friend's 
last  dying  splash,  while  Prosy  got  nearly  scot-free.  So  said  Sally 
to  Fenwick  as  they  walked  briskly  ahead  towards  home,  leaving 
the  others  to  make  their  own  pace.  Because  it  was  a  case  of 
changing  everything,  and  dinner  was  always  so  early  at  St. 
Sennans. 

"Let  them  go  on  in  front.  I  want  to  talk  to  you,  Dr.  Conrad." 
Rosalind,  perhaps,  thinks  his  attention  won't  wander  if  she  takes 
a  firm  tone;  doesn't  feel  sure  about  it,  otherwise.  Maybe  Sally  is 
too  definitely  in  possession  of  the  citadel  to  allow  of  an  incursion 


386  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

from  without.  She  continues:  "I  have  something  to  tell  you. 
Don't  look  frightened.  It  is  nothing  but  what  you  have  pre- 
dicted yourself.  My  husband's  memory  is  coming  back.  I 
don't  know  whether  I  ought  to  say  I  am  afraid  or  I  hope 
it  is  so.  .  .  ." 

"But  are  you  sure  it  is  so?" 

"Yes,  listen!  It  has  all  happened  since  you  and  Sally  left." 
And  then  she  narrated  to  the  doctor,  whose  preoccupation  had 
entirely  vanished,  first  the  story  of  the  recurrence,  and  Fenwick's 
description  of  it  in  full;  and  then  the  incident  of  the  Baron  at 
Sonnenberg,  but  less  in  detail.  Then  she  went  on,  walking 
slower,  not  to  reach  the  house  too  soon.  "Now,  this  is  the  thing 
that  makes  me  so  sure  it  is  recollection:  just  now,  as  we  were 
coming  to  the  jetty,  he  asked  me  suddenly  what  was  the  Baron's 
name.  I  gave  a  wrong  version  of  it,  and  he  corrected  me."  This 
does  not  meet  an  assent. 

"That  was  nothing.  He  had  heard  it  at  Sonnenberg.  I  think 
much  more  of  the  story  itself;  the  incident  of  the  wheel  and  so  on. 
Are  you  quite  sure  you  never  repeated  this  German  gentleman's 
story  to  Mr.  Fenwick?" 

"Quite  sure." 

"H'm  .  .  .  !" 

"So,  you  see,  I  want  you  to  help  me  to  think." 

"May  I  talk  to  him  about  it? — speak  openly  to  him?" 

"Yes;  to-morrow,  not  to-day.  I  want  to  hear  what  he  says  to- 
night. He  always  talks  a  great  deal  when  we're  alone  at  the  end 
of  the  day.  He  will  do  so  this  time.  But  I  want  you  to  tell  me 
about  an  idea  I  have." 

"What  idea?" 

"Did  Sally  tell  you  about  the  galvanic  battery  on  the  pier?" 
Dr.  Conrad  stopped  in  his  walk,  and  faced  round  towards  his 
companion.  He  shook  out  a  low  whistle — an  arpeggio  down. 
"Did  she  tell  you?"  repeated  Rosalind. 

"Miss  Sa    .  .  ." 

"Come,  come,  doctor!  Don't  be  ridiculous.  Say  Sally!"  The 
young  man's  heart  gave  a  responsive  little  jump,  and  then  said  to 
itself,  "But  perhaps  I'm  only  a  family  friend!"  and  climbed 
down.  However,  on  either  count,  "Sally"  was  nicer  than  "Miss 
Sally." 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  887 

"Sally  told  me  about  the  electric  entertainment  at  the  pier-end. 
I'm  sorry  I  missed  it.  But  if  that's  what's  done  it,  Fenwick  must 
try  it  again." 

"Mustn't  try  it  again?" 

"No — must  try  it  again.  Why,  do  you  think  it  bad  for  him  to 
remember?" 

"I  don't  know  what  to 'think." 

"My  notion  is  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  his  own  mind.  Any- 
how, one  has  no  right  to  keep  him  out  of  it." 

"Oh  no;  besides,  Gerry  isn't  out  of  it  in  this  case.  Not  out 
of  his  mind.  .  .  ." 

"I  didn't  mean  that  way.  I  meant  excluded  from  participa- 
tion in  himself  .  .  .  you  see?" 

"Oh  yes,  I  quite  understand.  Now  listen,  doctor.  I  want  you 
to  do  me  a  kindness.  Say  nothing,  even  to  Sally,  till  I  tell  you. 
Say  nothing!" 

"You  may  trust  me."  Rosalind  feels  no  doubt  on  that  point, 
the  more  so  that  the  little  passage  about  Sally's  name  has  landed 
her  at  some  haven  of  the  doctor's  confidence  that  neither  knows 
the  name  of  just  yet.  He  is  not  the  first  man  that  has  felt  a 
welcome  in  some  trifling  word  of  a  very  special  daughter's 
mother.  But  woe  be  to  the  mother  who  is  premature  and  spoils 
all!  Poor  Prosy  is  too  far  gone  to  be  a  risky  subject  of  experi- 
ment. But  lie  won't  say  anything — not  he!  "After  all,  you 
know,"  he  continues,  "it  may  all  turn  out  a  false  alarm.  Or  false 
hope,  should  I  say?" 

No  answer.  And  he  doesn't  press  for  one.  He  is  in  a  land  of 
pitfalls. 

"What  have  you  and  your  medical  adviser  been  talking  about 
all  the  while,  there  in  mid-ocean?"  Fenwick  forgets  the  late 
event  with  pleasure.  Sally,  with  her  hair  threatening  to  come 
down  in  the  wind,  is  enough  to  stampede  a  troop  of  night- 
mares. 

"Poor  Prosy!"  is  all  the  answer  that  comes  at  present.  Per- 
haps if  that  uncontrolled  black  coil  will  be  tractable  she  will  con- 
cede more  anon.  You  can't  get  your  hair  back  under  your  hat 
and  walk  quick  and  talk,  all  at  the  same  time. 

"Poorer  than  usual,  Sarah?"    But  really  just  at  this  corner 


388  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

it's  as  much  as  you  can  do,  if  you  have  skirts,  to  get  along  at  all; 
to  say  nothing  of  the  way  such  loose  ends  as  you  indulge  in  turn 
on  you  and  flagellate  your  face  in  the  wind.  Oh,  the  vicious 
energy  of  that  stray  ribbon!  Fancy  having  to  use  up  one  hand 
to  hold  that! 

But  a  lull  came  when  the  corner  was  fairly  turned,  in  the  lee 
of  a  home  of  many  nets,  where  masses  of  foam-fleck  had  found 
a  respite,  and  leisure  to  collapse,  a  bubble  at  a  time.  You  could 
see  the  prism-scale  each  had  to  itself,  each  of  the  millions,  if  you 
looked  close  enough.  Collectively,  their  appearance  was  slovenly. 
A  chestnut-coloured  man  a  year  old,  who  looked  as  if  he  meant 
some  day  to  be  a  boatswain,  was  seated  on  a  pavement  that  can- 
not have  soothed  his  unprotected  flesh — flint  pebbles  can't,  how- 
ever round — and  enjoying  the  mysterious  impalpable  nature  of 
this  foam.  However,  even  for  such  hands  as  his — and  Sally 
wanted  to  kiss  them  badly — they  couldn't  stop.  She  got  her 
voice,  though,  in  the  lull. 

"Yes — a  little.     I've  found  out  all  about  Prosy." 

"Found  out  about  him?" 

"I've  made  him  talk  about  it.  It's  all  about  his  ma  and  a 
young  lady  he's  in  love  with.  .  .  ."  Fenwick's  ha!  or  h'm!  or 
both  joined  together,  was  probably  only  meant  to  hand  the  speaker 
on,  but  the  tone  made  her  suspicious.  She  asked  him  why  he 
said  that,  imitating  it;  on  which  he  answered,  "Why  shouldn't 
he?"  "Because,"  said  Sally,  "if  you  fancy  Prosy's  in  love  with 
me,  you're  mistaken." 

"Very  good!  Cut  along,  Sarah!  You've  made  him  talk  about 
the  young  lady  he's  in  love  with  .  .  .  ?" 

"Well,  he  as  good  as  talked  about  her,  anyhow!  I  understood 
quite  plain.  He  wants  to  marry  her  awfully,  but  he's  afraid  to 
say  so  to  her,  because  of  his  ma." 

"Doesn't  Mrs.  Vereker  like  her?" 

"Dotes  upon  her,  he  says.  Ug-g-h!  No,  it  isn't  that.  It's 
the  lugging  the  poor  girl  into  his  ma's  sphere  of  influence.  He's 
conscious  of  his  ma,  but  adores  her.  Only  he's  aware  she's  over- 
whelming, and  always  gets  her  own  roundabout  way.  I  prefer 
Tishy's  dragon,  if  you  ask  me." 

At  that  point  Sally  is  quite  unconscious  of  Fenwick's  amused 
eyes  fixed  on  her,  and  his  smile  in  ambush.  She  says  the  last 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  389 

words  through  a  hairpin,  while  her  hands  take  advantage  of  the 
lull  to  make  a  good  job  of  that  rope  of  black  hair.  She  will  go 
on  and  tell  all  the  story;  so  Fenwick  doesn't  speak.  Surprised 
at  first  by  the  tale  of  Dr.  Conrad's  young  lady,  his  ideas  have  by 
now  fructified.  Sally  continues: 

"He's  often  told  me  he  thought  G.P.'s  were  better  single,  for 
their  wives'  sakes — that  sounds  wrong,  somehow! — but  it  isn't 
that.  It's  his  ma  entirely.  I  suppose  he's  told  you  about  the 
epileptiform  disorders?"  No,  he  hadn't.  "Well,  now!  Fancy 
Prosy  not  telling  you  that!  He's  become  quite  an  authority 
since  those  papers  he  had  in  the  'Lancet,'  and  he's  thinking  of 
giving  up  general  practice.  Sir  Dioscorides  Gayler's  a  cousin 
of  his,  you  know,  and  would  pass  on  his  practice  to  Prosy  on  easy 
terms.  House  in  Seymour  Street,  Portman  Square.  Great  au- 
thority on  epilepsy  and  epileptiform  disorders.  Wants  a  suc- 
cessor who  knows  about  'em.  Naturally.  Wants  three  thousand 
pounds.  Naturally.  Big  fees!  But  he  would  make  it  easy  for 
Prosy." 

"That  would  be  all  right;  soon  manage  that."  Fenwick  speaks 
with  the  confidence  of  one  in  a  thriving  trade.  The  deity  of 
commerce,  security,  can  manage  all  things.  Insecurity  is  atheism 
in  the  City.  "But  then,"  he  adds,  "Vereker  wouldn't  marry, 
even  with  a  house  and  big-fee  consultations,  because  he's  afraid 
his  mother  would  hector  over  his  wife.  Is  that  it?" 

"That's  it!  It's  his  Goody  mother.  I  say,  it  is  blowing!"  It 
was,  and  they  had  emerged  from  the  shelter  into  the  wind.  No 
more  talk! 

As  Fenwick,  sea-blown  and  salted,  resorted  to  the  lodging- 
house  allowance  of  fresh  water  and  soap,  in  a  perfunctory  and 
formal  preparation  for  dinner,  his  mind  ran  continually  on 
Sally's  communication.  As  for  the  other  young  lady  being  valid, 
that  he  dismissed  as  nonsense  not  worth  consideration.  Vereker 
had  been  resorting  to  a  furtive  hint  of  a  declaration,  disguised 
as  fiction.  It  was  a  fabula  narrata  de  Sally,  mutato  nomine.  If 
she  didn't  see  through  it,  and  respond  in  kind,  it  would  show  him 
how  merely  a  friend  he  was,  and  nothing  more.  "Perhaps  he 
doesn't  understand  our  daughter's  character,"  said  Fenwick  to 
Rosalind,  when  he  had  repeated  the  conversation  to  her.  "Of 


390  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

course  he  doesn't,"  she  replied.  "No  young  man  of  his  sort  un- 
derstands girls  the  least.  The  other  sort  of  young  man  under- 
stands the  other  sort  of  girls." 

And  then  a  passing  wonderment  had  touched  her  mind,  of  how 
strange  it  was  that  Sally  should  be  one  of  her  own  sort,  so  very 
distinctly.  How  about  inheritance?  She  grew  reflective  and 
silent  over  it,  and  then  roused  herself  to  wonder,  illogically,  why 
Gerry  hadn't  gone  on  talking. 

The  reason  was  that  as  his  mind  dwelt  happy  and  satisfied  on 
the  good  prospect  Vereker  would  have  if  he  could  step  into  his 
cousin's  specialist  practice  as  a  consulting  physician,  with  a 
reputation  already  begun,  his  thoughts  were  caught  with  a 
strange  jerk.  What  and  whence  was  a  half-memory  of  some 
shadowy  store  of  wealth  that  was  to  make  it  the  easiest  thing  in 
the  world  for  him  to  finance  the  new  departure  ?  It  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  vast  mysterious  possibilities  of  credit.  It  was  a 
recollection  of  some  resourceful  backing  he  was  entitled  to, 
somehow;  and  he  was  reminded  by  it  of  his  dream  about  the 
furniture — (we  told  you  of  that?) — but  with  a  reservation. 
When  he  woke  from  the  sleep-dream  of  the  furniture,  he  in  a 
short  time  could  distinctly  identify  it  as  a  dream,  and  was  con- 
vinced no  such  furniture  had  ever  existed.  He  could  not  shake 
off  this  waking  dream,  and  it  clogged  his  mind  painfully,  and 
made  him  silent. 

So  much  so  that  when  Eosalind,  soon  completed  for  the  ban- 
queting-board,  looked  into  the  adjoining  room  to  see  what 
progress  Gerry  was  making,  and  why  he  was  silent,  she  only  saw 
the  back  of  a  powerful  frame  in  its  shirt-sleeves,  and  a  pair  of 
hands  holding  on  each  side  an  unbrushed  head.  The  elbows  in- 
dispensable to  them  rested  on  the  window-bar. 

"Look  alive,  Gerry  darling! — you'll  make  dinner  late.  .  .  . 
Anything  wrong,  dear  love?"  Sudden  anxiety  in  her  voice. 
"Is  it  another  .  .  .  ?"  Another  what?  No  need  to  define, 
exactly ! 

"A  sort  of  one,"  Fenwick  answers.  "Not  so  bad  as  the  last. 
Hardly  describable!  Never  mind." 

He  made  no  effort  towards  description,  and  his  wife  did  not 
press  him  for  it.  What  good  end  could  be  gained  by  fidgeting 
him? 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  391 

But  she  knew  now  that  her  life  would  be  weighted  with  an 
anxiety  hard  to  bear,  until  his  hesitating  return  of  memory  should 
make  its  decision  of  success  or  failure.  A  guarantee  of  the  latter 
would  have  been  most  to  her  liking,  but  how  could  she  hope  for 
that  now? 


CHAPTEK  XXXV 

HOW  A  STONE  THROWN  DROVE  THE  WEDGE  FURTHER  YET.  OP  A  TER- 
RIBLE NIGHT  IN  A  BIG  GALE,  AND  A  DOOR  THAT  SLAMMED.  THE 
WEDGE  WELL  IN 

THE  speculative  weather-wisdom  of  the  tattooed  capstan-driver 
was  confirmed  when  three  in  the  morning  came,  and  the  full  of 
the  tide.  The  wind  must  have  gone  round  to  the  southward,  or 
to  some  equally  stimulating  quarter,  to  judge  by  the  work  it  got 
through  that  night  in  the  way  of  roofs  blown  off  and  chimney- 
pots blown  down:  standing  crops  laid  flat  and  spoiled  for  reap- 
ing; trees  too  full  of  leaf  to  bear  such  rough  treatment  compelled 
to  tear  up  half  their  roots  and  fall,  or  pay  tribute  to  the  gale  in 
boughs  snapped  asunder  in  time  to  spare  their  parent  stem.  All 
these  results  we  landsmen  could  see  for  ourselves  next  day,  after 
the  storm  had  died  down,  and  when  the  air  was  so  delightful 
after  it  that  we  took  walks  in  the  country  on  purpose  to  enjoy  it. 
But  for  the  mischief  it  did  that  night  at  sea,  from  sportively 
carrying  away  the  spars  of  ships,  which  they  wanted  for  their 
own  use,  or  blowing  a  stray  reefer  from  the  weather-earring,  to 
sending  a  full  crew  to  the  depths  below,  or  on  jagged  rocks  no 
message  from  the  white  foam  above  could  warn  the  look-out  of 
in  time — for  the  record  of  this  we  should  have  belated  inter- 
mittent newspaper  paragraphs,  ever  so  long  after. 

But  the  wind  had  not  reached  its  ideal  when,  at  the  end  of  a 
pleasant  evening,  Sally  and  her  belongings  decided  that  they  must 
just  go  down  to  the  beach  and  see  the  waves  before  going  to  bed. 
Wasn't  there  a  moon?  Well — yes,  there  was  a  moon,  but  you 
couldn't  see  it.  That  made  a  difference,  certainly,  but  not  a 
conclusive  one.  It  wasn't  a  bad  sort  of  a  night,  although  it  cer- 
tainly was  blowing,  and  the  waves  would  be  grand  seen  close. 
So  the  party  turned  out  to  go  down  to  the  beach.  It  included  the 
Julius  Bradshaws  and  Dr.  Conrad,  who  had  looked  in  as  usual. 

392 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  393 

But  the  doctor  found  out  that  it  was  past  eleven,  and,  recalled  by 
duty,  returned  to  his  Octopus. 

The  waves,  seen  close,  would  have  been  grand  if  you  could 
have  seen  them  from  the  beach,  or  as  much  of  it  as  they  had  left 
you  to  stand  on.  But  you  really  could  only  guess  what  was  going 
on  out  in  that  great  dark  world  of  deep  thunder,  beyond  the 
successive  rushes  of  mad  foam,  each  of  which  made  up  its  mind 
to  tear  the  coast  up  this  time;  and  then  changed  it  and  went  back, 
but  always  took  with  it  stones  enough  for  next  attempt.  And 
the  indignant  clamour  of  the  rushing  shoals,  dragged  off  to  sea 
against  their  will,  rose  and  fell  in  the  lulls  of  the  thunder  beyond. 
Sally  wanted  to  quote  Tennyson's  "Maud"  about  them,  but  she 
couldn't  for  the  tremendous  wind. 

The  propensity  to  throw  stones  into  the  water,  whenever  there 
are  stones  and  water,  is  always  a  strong  one,  even  when  the  water 
is  black  mountain  ranges,  foam-ridged  Sierras  coming  on  to 
crush  us,  appalling  us,  even  though  we  know  they  are  sure  to  die 
in  time.  Stones  were  thrown  on  this  occasion  by  Sally  and  her 
stepfather,  who  was  credulous  enough  to  suppose  that  his  pebbles 
passed  the  undertow  and  reached  the  sea  itself.  Sally  was  pre- 
vented by  the  elements  from  misusing  an  adjective;  for  she 
wanted  to  say  that  the  effect  of  a  stone  thrown  into  such  a  sea 
was  merely  "homoeopathic,"  and  abstained  because  her  remark 
would  have  been  unheard. 

Fenwick  wanted  to  say  that  it  was  like  the  way  a  man  dies  and 
vanishes  into  the  great  unknown.  He,  too,  refrained  from  this, 
but  only  partly  for  the  same  reason.  Its  want  of  novelty  made 
another. 

All  the  others  soon  wanted  to  say  it  was  time  to  go  home  to 
bed,  and  tried  to  say  it.  But  practice  seemed  easier,  and  they 
all  turned  to  go,  followed  by  Fenwick  and  Sally,  cheerfully  dis- 
cussing the  point  of  whether  Sally  could  have  swum  out  into  that 
sea  or  not.  Sally  wanted  to  know  what  was  to  prevent  her. 
Obvious  enough,  one  would  have  said! 

But  Rosalind  noticed  one  thing  that  was  a  pleasure  to  her. 
The  moment  Sally  came  in,  her  husband's  dream-afflictions  went 
out.  Had  he  ever  spoken  of  one  in  her  presence?  She  could 
recall  no  instance.  This  evening  the  return  to  absolute  cheerful- 


394  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ness  dated  from  the  reappearance  of  Sally  after  she  had  changed 
everything,  and  made  her  hair  hold  up.  It  lasted  through  fried 
soles  and  a  huge  fowl — done  enough  this  time — and  a  bread-and- 
butter  pudding  impaired  by  too  many  raisins.  Through  the 
long  end  of  a  game  of  chess  begun  by  Sally  and  Dr.  Conrad  the 
evening  before,  and  two  rubbers  of  whist,  in  which  everybody 
else  had  all  the  good  cards  in  their  hands,  as  is  the  case  in  that 
game.  And  through  the  visit  to  Neptune  above  recorded. 

But  when,  after  half-an-hour's  chat  over  the  day's  events  with 
Rosalind,  midnight  and  an  extinguished  candle  left  Fenwick  to 
himself  and  his  pillow  in  the  little  room  next  hers  with  no  door 
between,  which  Mrs.  Lobjoit's  resources  dictated,  there  came  back 
to  him  first  a  recollection  of  his  suppressed  commonplace  about 
the  stone  that  had  vanished  for  ever  in  the  world  of  waters;  then 
a  hazy  memory  of  the  same  thing  having  happened  before  and  the 
same  remark  having  been  made  by  himself;  then  a  sudden  jerk 
of  surprise,  when,  just  as  he  was  thinking  of  sleep,  he  was  able 
to  answer  a  question  Space  asked  him  spontaneously  about  where 
this  happened,  with  what  would  have  been,  had  he  been  quite 
awake,  words  spoken  aloud  to  himself.  "That  time  at  Niagara, 
of  course!"  And  this  jerk  of  surprise  left  him  wide-awake, 
struggling  with  an  army  of  revived  memories  that  had  come  on 
him  suddenly. 

He  was  so  thoroughly  waked  by  them  that  a  difficulty  he  always 
had  of  remaining  in  bed  when  not  asleep  dictated  a  relighted 
candle  and  a  dressing-gown  and  slippers.  It  was  akin  to  his 
aversion  to  over-comfortable  chairs;  though  he  acknowledged 
beds  as  proper  implements  of  sleep,  sleep  being  granted.  And 
sleep  seemed  now  so  completely  out  of  the  question,  even  if  there 
had  been  no  roaring  of  the  gale  and  no  constant  thunder  of  the 
seas  on  the  beach  below,  that  Fenwick  surrendered  at  discretion, 
and  gave  himself  up  a  helpless  prisoner  in  the  grasp  of  his  own 
past. 

Not  of  the  whole  of  it.  But  of  as  much  as  he  could  face  here 
and  now.  Another  mind  that  could  have  commanded  some 
strange  insight  into  the  whole  of  this  past,  and  his  power  or 
powerlessness  to  look  it  in  the  face,  might  have  striven  to  avert 
its  revival.  That  blow  might  have  been  too  overwhelming.  But 
there  was  enough,  as  we  shall  see,  in  the  recollection  that  came 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  395 

back  of  the  decade  before  his  return  to  England,  to  make  hi3 
breath  catch  and  a  shudder  run  through  his  strong  frame  as  he 
pressed  his  palms  hard  on  his  eyelids,  just  as  though  by  so  doing 
he  could  shut  it  out. 

Thank  God  Rosey  was  asleep,  or  would  be  soon.  He  would 
have  time  to  think  how  he  could  tell  the  story  he  could  not  be 
silent  about — that,  he  felt,  might  be  impossible — and  yet  keep 
back  one  ominous  portentous  fact  that  had  come  to  him,  as  a 
motive  force  in  his  former  life,  without  the  details  of  his  early 
history  that  belonged  to  it.  That  fact  Rosey  must  never  know, 
even  if  ...  well! — so  many  things  turned  on  it.  All  he  could 
see  now — taken  by  surprise  as  he  was — was  that,  come  what 
might,  that  fact  should  always  be  kept  from  her.  But  as  to 
concealing  from  her  his  strange  experience  altogether,  that  was 
hardly  to  be  thought  of.  He  would  conceal  it  while  he  could, 
though,  provisionally. 

One  o'clock  by  his  watch  on  the  dressing-table  under  the  candle. 
St.  Sennans  must  have  struck  unheard.  No  wonder — in  this 
wind!  Surely  it  had  rather  increased,  if  anything.  Fen  wick 
paced  with  noiseless  care  about  the  little  room;  he  could  not  be 
still.  The  sustained  monotone  of  wind  and  sea  was  only  crossed 
now  and  then  by  a  sound  of  fall  or  breakage,  to  chronicle  some 
little  piece  of  mischief  achieved  by  the  former  on  land,  and  raise 
the  latter's  hopes  of  some  such  success  in  its  turn  before  the  night 
should  end.  .  .  . 

Two  o'clock  by  the  dressing-table  watch,  and  still  the  noiseless 
slippered  feet  of  the  sleepless  man  came  and  went.  Little  fear 
of  any  one  else  hearing  him!  For  the  wind  seemed  to  have  got 
up  the  bit  that  was  predicted  of  it,  and  had  certainly  gone  round 
to  the  suth'ard.  If  any  sleeper  could  cling  to  unconsciousness 
through  the  rattle  of  the  windows  and  the  intermittent  banging 
of  a  spectral  door  that  defied  identification — the  door  that  always 
bangs  in  storms  everywhere — the  mere  movement  of  a  cautious 
foot  would  have  no  effect.  If  unable  to  sleep  for  the  wind,  none 
would  be  alive  to  it.  It  would  be  lost  in  the  storm.  .  .  . 

Three  o'clock!  Did  you,  who  read  this,  ever  watch  through  a 
night  with  something  on  your  mind  you  are  to  be  forced  to  speak 
of  in  the  morning — a  compulsion  awaiting  you  as  a  lion  awaiting 
the  debut  of  a  reluctant  martyr  in  the  arena  of  the  Coliseum;1 


396  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Did  you,  so  watching,  feel — not  the  tedium — but  the  maddening 
speed  of  the  hours,  the  cruelty  of  the  striking  clocks?  Were 
you  conscious  of  a  grateful  reliance  on  your  bedroom  door,  still 
closed  between  you  and  your  lion,  as  the  gate  that  the  eager  eyes 
of  Rome  were  fixed  on  was  still  a  respite  from  his?  Fenwick 
was;  keenly  conscious.  And  when  on  a  sudden  he  heard  with  a 
start  that  a  furtive  hand  was  on  the  old-fashioned  door-latch,  he, 
knowing  it  could  be  none  other  than  Rosalind,  sleepless  in  the 
storm,  felt  that  the  lion  had  stolen  a  march  on  him,  and  that  he 
must  make  up  his  mind  sharp  whether  he  would  go  for  complete 
confidence  or  partial  reserve.  Certainly  the  latter,  of  necessity, 
said  Alacrity.  There  could  be  no  doubt  of  it,  on  her  account — 
for  the  present,  at  any  rate. 

For  he  had  recollected,  look  you,  that  at  the  time  of  that  stone- 
throw  into  the  rapids  above  Niagara  he  was  a  married  man  some- 
how separated  from  his  wife.  And  the  way  that  he  knew  this 
was  that  he  could  remember  plainly  that  the  reason  he  did  not 
make  an  offer  of  marriage,  there  by  the  great  torrent  that  was 
rushing  to  the  Falls,  to  a  French  girl  (whose  name  he  got  clearly) 
was  that  he  did  not  know  if  his  wife  was  dead  or  living.  He 
did  not  know  it  now.  The  oddity  of  it  was  that,  though  he 
remembered  clearly  this  incident  hinging  on  the  fact  that  he  was 
then  a  married  man,  he  could  remember  neither  the  wife  he  had 
married  nor  anything  connected  with  her.  He  strove  hard  against 
this  partial  insight  into  his  past,  which  seemed  to  him  stranger 
than  complete  oblivion.  But  he  soon  convinced  himself  that  a 
slight  hazy  vision  he  conjured  up  of  a  wedding  years  and  years 
ago  was  only  a  reflex  image — an  automatic  reaction — from  his 
recent  marriage.  For  did  not  the  wraith  of  his  present  wife 
quietly  take  its  place  before  the  altar  where  by  rights  he  should 
have  been  able  to  recall  her  predecessor?  It  was  all  confusion; 
no  doubt  of  it. 

But  his  mind  had  travelled  quickly  too;  for  when  Rosalind 
looked  in  at  his  door  he  knew  what  he  had  to  say,  for  her 
sake. 

"Gerry  darling,  have  you  never  been  to  bed  ?" 

"For  a  bit,  dearest.  Then  I  found  I  couldn't  sleep,  and  got 
up." 

"Isn't  it  awful,  the  noise?    One  hears  it  so  in  this  house.  .  ,  • 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  397 

Well,  I  suppose  it's  the  same  in  any  house  that  looks  straight  over 
the  sea." 

"Haven't  you  slept?" 

"Oh  yes,  a  little.  But  then  it  woke  me.  Then  I  thought  I 
heard  you  moving." 

"So  I  was.  Now,  suppose  we  both  go  to  bed,  and  try  to  sleep. 
I  shall  have  to,  because  of  my  candle.  Is  that  all  you've  got 
left?" 

"That's  all,  and  it's  guttering.  And  the  paper  will  catch 
directly."  She  blew  it  out  to  avoid  this,  and  added:  "Stop  a 
minute  and  I'll  take  the  paper  off,  and  make  it  do  for  a  bit." 

"You  can  have  mine.  Leave  me  yours."  For  Fenwick's  was, 
even  now,  after  burning  so  long,  the  better  candle-end  of  the  two. 
He  took  it  out  of  the  socket,  and  slipped  its  paper  roll  off,  an 
economy  suggested  by  the  condition  of  its  fellow. 

But  as  he  did  so  his  own  light  flashed  full  on  his  face,  and 
Rosalind  saw  a  look  on  it  that  scarcely  belonged  to  mere  sleep- 
lessness like  her  own — unrest  that  comes  to  most  of  us  when  the 
elements  are  restless. 

"Gerry,  you've  been  worrying.  You  know  you  have,  dear. 
Speak  the  truth!  You've  been  trying  to  recollect  things." 

"I  had  nobody  here  to  prevent  me,  you  see."  He  made  no 
denial;  in  fact,  thought  admission  of  baffled  effort  was  his  safest 
course.  "I  get  worried  and  fidgeted  by  chaotic  ideas  when  you're 
not  here.  But  it's  nothing."  Rosalind  did  not  agree  to  this  at 
all. 

"I  wish  Mrs.  Lobjoit  could  have  put  us  both  in  one  room,"  she 
said. 

"Well,  we  didn't  see  our  way,  you  know,"  he  replied,  referring 
to  past  councils  on  sleeping  arrangements.  "It's  only  for  a 
week,  after  all." 

"Yes,  darling;  but  a  week's  a  week,  and  I  can't  have  you  wor- 
ried to  death."  She  made  him  lie  down  again,  and  sat  by  him, 
holding  his  hand.  So  unnerved  was  he  by  his  glance  back  into 
his  past,  so  long  unknown  to  him,  and  so  sweet  was  the  comfort 
of  her  presence  and  the  touch  of  her  living  hand  after  all  those 
hours  of  perturbation  alone,  that  Fenwick  made  no  protest  against 
her  remaining  beside  him.  But  a  passiveness  that  would  have 
belonged  to  an  invalid  or  a  sluggish  temperament  seemed  unlike 


398  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

the  strong  man  Eosalind  knew  him  for,  and  she  guessed  from  it 
that  there  was  more  behind.  Still,  she  said  nothing,  and  sat  on 
with  his  hand  grasping  hers  and  finding  in  it  his  refuge  from 
himself.  To  her  its  warm  pressure  was  a  sure  sign  that  his 
memory  had  not  penetrated  the  darkness  of  his  earlier  time.  If 
God  willed,  it  might  never  do  so.  Meanwhile,  what  was  there 
for  it  but  patience? 

As  she  sat  there  listening  to  the  roaring  of  the  gale  outside,  and 
watching  with  satisfaction  the  evident  coming  of  sleep,  she  said 
to  herself  that  it  might  easily  be  that  some  new  thing  had  come 
back  to  him  which  he  would  be  unwilling  she  should  know  about, 
at  least  until  his  own  mind  was  clearer.  He  might  speak  with 
less  reserve  to  Vereker.  She  would  give  the  doctor  leave  to  talk 
to  him  to-morrow.  Fear  of  what  she  would  hear  may  have 
influenced  her  in  this. 

So  when,  sooner  than  she  had  expected,  she  caught  the  sound 
of  the  first  breath  of  indisputable  sleep,  she  rose  and  slipped 
away  quietly,  and  as  she  lay  down  again  to  rest  again  asked  her- 
self the  question:  Was  it  the  galvanism  that  had  done  it? 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

HOW  FENWICK  AND  VEREKER  WENT  FOR  A  WALK,  AND  MORE  MEMORIES 
CAME  BACK.  HOW  FENWICK  WAS  A  MILLIONAIRE,  OR  THEREABOUTS. 
OF  A  CLUE  THAT  KILLED  ITSELF.  HARRISSON's  AFFAIR  NOW !  BOTHER 

THE  MILLIONS!  is  NOT  LOVE  BETTER  THAN  MONEY?    ONLY  FEN- 
WICK'S  NAME  WASN'T  IIARRISSON  NEITHER 

"WE  thought  it  best  to  let  you  have  your  sleep  out,  dear.  Sally 
agreed.  No,  leave  the  pot  alone.  Mrs.  Lobjoit  will  make  some 
fresh  coffee." 

"Who's  the  other  cup?" 

"Vereker.  He  came  in  to  breakfast;  to  see  if  we  were  blown 
away." 

"I  see.     Of  course.     Where  are  they  now?" 

"They?  ...  oh,  him  and  Sally!  They  said  they'd  go  and  see 
if  Tishy  and  her  husband  were  blown  away." 

"Well,  I  have  had  my  sleep  out  with  a  vengeance.  It's  a  quar- 
ter to  ten." 

"Never  mind,  darling.  So  much  the  better.  Let's  have  a 
look  at  you.  .  .  ."  And  the  little  self-explantory  colloquy  ends 
with  Kosalind  kissing  her  husband  and  examining  him  with 
anxious  eyes.  She  sees  a  face  less  haggard  than  the  one  she  saw 
last  night,  for  is  it  not  daylight  and  has  not  the  wind  fallen  to 
a  mere  cheerful  breeze  you  can  quite  stand  upright  in,  leaning 
slightly  seawards?  And  are  not  the  voices  and  the  footsteps  of 
a  new  day  outside,  and  the  swift  exchanges  of  sunlight  and  cloud- 
shadow  that  are  chasing  each  other  off  the  British  Channel? 
And  has  not  a  native  of  eighty  years  of  age  (which  he  ignores) 
just  opened  the  street  door  on  his  own  responsibility  and  shouted 
along  the  passage  that  pra'ans  are  large  this  morning?  He  is 
more  an  institution  than  a  man,  and  is  freely  spoken  of  as  "The 
Shrimps."  A  flavour  of  a  Triton  who  has  got  too  dry  on  the 
beach  comes  in  with  the  sea  air,  and  also  a  sense  of  prawns, 
emptied  from  a  wooden  measure  they  have  been  honourably 

399 


400  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

shaken  down  into,  falling  on  a  dish  held  out  to  receive  them  by 
an  ambassador  of  four,  named  by  Sally  little  Miss  Lobjoit,  the 
youngest  of  her  race. 

But  for  all  that  the  rising  life  of  the  hours  and  the  subsiding 
gale  may  do  to  chase  away  the  memory  of  the  oppressions  of  the 
night  from  one  who  was  defenceless  in  its  solitude,  Eosalind  can 
see  how  much  they  leave  behind.  Her  husband  may  do  his  best 
to  make  light  of  it — to  laugh  it  off  as  nothing  but  the  common 
bad  night  we  all  know  so  well;  may  make  the  most  of  the  noises 
of  the  storm,  and  that  abominable  banging  door ;  but  he  will  not 
conceal  from  her  the  effort  that  it  costs  him  to  do  so.  Besides, 
had  he  not  admitted,  in  the  night,  that  he  "got  worried  and 
fidgeted  by  chaotic  ideas"?  What  were  these  ideas?  How  far 
had  he  penetrated  into  his  own  past?  She  was  not  sorry  for  the 
few  words  she  had  had  time  to  exchange  with  Dr.  Conrad  while 
Sally  went  to  seek  her  hat.  She  had  renewed  and  confirmed  her 
permission  to  him  to  speak  to  her  husband  freely  about  himself. 

"Are  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Paganini  gone  to  sea?"  This  is  said  as 
Fenwick  opens  negotiations  rather  mechanically  with  the  fresh 
coffee  Mrs.  Lobjoit  has  produced,  and  as  that  lady  constructs  for 
removal  a  conglomerate  of  plates  and  effete  eggs. 

"Gone  to  sea,  Gerry?  Not  very  likely.  What's  the  meaning 
of  that?  Explain." 

"Why,  Sally  and  her  doctor  are  staring  out  at  the  offing.  .  .  ." 

"Well?" 

"And  didn't  you  say  they  had  gone  to  find  out  if  they  were 
blown  away?" 

"I  supposed  they  changed  their  minds."  Eosalind  talks  ab- 
sently, as  if  they  didn't  matter.  All  her  thoughts  are  on  her 
husband.  But  she  doesn't  fancy  catechizing  him  about  his 
experiences  in  the  night,  neither.  She  had  better  let  him  alone, 
and  wait  new  oblivion  or  a  healthy  revival. 

He  is  also  distrait,  and  when  he  spoke  of  Sally  and  the  doctor 
he  had  shown  no  interest  in  his  own  words.  His  eyes  do  not 
kindle  at  hers  in  his  old  way,  and  might  be  seeing  nothing,  for  all 
there  is  in  them  to  tell  of  it.  He  makes  very  short  work  of  a  cup 
of  coffee,  and  a  mere  pretence  of  anything  else;  and  then,  sud- 
denly rousing  himself  with  a  shake,  says  this  won't  do,  and  he 
must  go  out  and  get  a  blow.  All  right,  says  Kosalind,  and  he'd 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  401 

better  get  Dr.  Conrad,  and  make  him  go  for  a  walk.  Only  they 
are  not  to  fall  over  the  cliff. 

"Fall  over  the  cliff!"  repeats  Fenwick.  He  laughs,  and  she 
is  glad  at  the  sound.  "You  couldn't  fall  over  the  cliff  against 
such  a  wind  as  this.  I  defy  any  one  to."  He  kisses  her  and 
goes  out,  and  she  hears  him  singing,  as  he  hunts  for  a  stick  that 
has  vanished,  an  old  French  song: 

"  Auprfes  de  ma  blond-e 
Comme  c'eat  bon — c'est  bon — c'est  bon.   .  .   .** 

Only,  when  he  has  found  the  stick  and  his  hat,  he  does  not  go  at 
once,  but  comes  back,  and  says,  as  he  kisses  her  again:  "Don't 
fidget  about  me,  darling;  I'm  all  right."  Which  must  have  been 
entirely  brain-wave  or  thought-reading,  as  Rosalind  had  said 
never  a  word  of  her  anxiety,  so  far. 

Fenwick  walked  away  briskly  towards  the  flagstaff  where  Sally 
and  Vereker  had  been  looking  out  to  sea.  In  the  dazzling  sun- 
shine— all  the  more  dazzling  for  the  suddenness  of  its  come  and 
go — and  the  intoxicating  rush  of  well-washed  air  that  each  of 
those  crested  waves  out  yonder  knew  so  much  about — and  they 
were  all  of  a  tale — and  such  a  companion  in  the  enjoyment  of  it 
as  that  white  sea-bird  afloat  against  the  blue  gap  of  sky  or  purple 
underworld  of  cloud,  what  could  he  do  other  than  cast  away  the 
thoughts  the  night  had  left,  the  cares,  whatever  they  were,  that 
the  revival  of  memory  had  brought  back? 

If  he  could  not  succeed  altogether  in  putting  them  aside,  at 
least  he  could  see  his  way  to  bearing  them  better,  with  a  kiss  of  his 
wife  still  on  his  face,  and  all  St.  Sennans  about  him  in  the  sun- 
shine, and  Sally  to  come.  However,  before  he  reached  the  flag- 
staff he  met  the  doctor,  and  heard  that  Miss  Sally  had  actually 
gone  down  to  the  machines  to  see  if  Gabriel  wouldn't  put  one 
down  near  the  water,  so  that  she  could  run  a  little  way.  She 
was  certain  she  could  swim  in  that  sea  if  she  could  once  get 
through  what  she  called  the  selvage-wave.  If  Gabriel  wouldn't, 
she  should  take  her  things  up  to  the  house  and  put  them  on  and 
walk  down  to  the  sea  in  a  cloak.  It  was  quite  ridiculous,  said 
the  merpussy,  people  making  such  a  fuss  about  a  few  waves. 
What  was  the  world  coming  to? 

"She'll  be  all  safe,"  was  Fenwick's  comment  when  he  heard 


402  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

this.  "They  won't  let  her  go  in,  at  the  machines.  They  won't 
let  her  leave  the  Turkey-twill  knickers  and  the  short  skirt.  She 
always  leaves  them  there  to  dry.  She's  all  right.  Let's  take  a 
turn  across  the  field;  it's  too  windy  for  the  cliff." 

"You  had  a  bad  night,  Fenwick." 

"All  of  us  had.  About  three  in  the  morning  I  thought  the 
house  would  blow  down.  And  there  was  a  door  banged, 
etc.  .  .  ." 

"You  had  a  worse  night  than  the  rest  of  us.  Look  at  me 
straight  in  the  face.  No,  I  wasn't  going  to  say  show  me  your 
tongue."  They  had  stopped  a  moment  at  the  top  of  what  was 
known  as  The  Steps — par  excellence — which  was  the  shortest 
cut  up  to  the  field-path.  Dr.  Conrad  looks  a  second  or  so,  and 
then  goes  on:  "I  thought  so.  You've  got  black  lines  under  your 
eyes,  and  you're  evidently  conscious  of  the  lids.  I  expect  you've 
got  a  pain  in  them,  one  in  each,  tied  together  by  a  string  across 
here."  That  is  to  say,  from  eyebrow  to  eyebrow,  as  illustrated 
fingerwise. 

Fenwick  wasn't  prepared  to  deny  it  evidently.  He  drew  his 
own  fingers  across  his  forehead,  as  though  to  feel  if  the  pain  were 
really  there.  It  confirmed  a  suspicion  he  couldn't  have  sworn  to. 

"Yes;  I  suppose  I  did  have  a  worse  night  than  the  rest  of  you. 
At  least,  I  hope  so,  for  your  sakes."  His  manner  might  have 
seemed  to  warrant  immediate  speculation  or  inquiry  about  the 
cause  of  his  sleeplessness,  but  Yereker  walked  on  beside  him  in 
silence.  The  way  was  along  a  short,  frustrated  street  that  led  to 
the  field-pathway  that  was  grass-grown,  more  or  less,  all  but  the 
heaps  of  flints  that  were  one  day  to  make  a  new  top-dressing, 
but  had  been  forgotten  by  the  local  board,  and  the  premature 
curb-stones  whose  anticipations  about  traffic  had  never  been  ful- 
filled. The  little  detached  houses  on  either  side  were  unselfish 
little  houses,  that  only  wanted  to  be  useful  and  afford  shelter  to 
the  wanderer,  or  provide  a  refuge  for  old  age.  All  made  use,  on 
placards,  of  the  cautious  expression  "Apartments";  while  some 
flung  all  reserve  to  the  winds  and  said  also  they  were  "To  let" 
outright.  The  least  satisfactory  one  of  the  lot  was  almost  in- 
visible owing  to  its  egotism,  but  distinguishable  from  afar  because 
the  cross-board  on  a  standard  that  had  been  placed  in  the  garden- 
front  had  fallen  forward  over  the  palings  like  Punch's  gallows. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  403 

It  didn't  much  matter,  because  the  placard  attached  was  dissolv- 
ing off  in  the  rains,  and  hanging  down  so  low  that  a  goat  was 
eating  it  with  relish,  standing  against  the  parapet  of  the  garden- 
fence. 

They  reached  the  point  at  which  Albion  Villas  had  been 
thwarted  by  a  hedge,  rich  in  unripe  sloes  and  green  abortive 
blackberries,  in  their  attempt  to  get  across  a  stubble-field  to  the 
new  town,  and  passed  in  instalments  through  its  turnstile,  or 
kissing-gate.  Neither  spoke,  except  that  Fenwick  said,  "Look  at 
the  goat,"  until,  after  they  had  turned  on  to  the  chalk  pathway, 
nearly  dry  in  the  warm  sun  and  wind,  he  added  a  question: 

"Did  you  ever  taste  a  sloe?" 

"Yes,  once." 

"That  is  what  every  one  says  if  you  ask  him  if  he  ever  tasted 
a  sloe.  Nobody  ever  does  it  again." 

"But  they  make  sloe-gin  of  them?" 

"That,  my  dear  Vereker,  is  what  everybody  always  says  next. 
Sally  told  me  they  did,  and  she's  right.  They  console  them- 
selves for  the  taste  of  the  sloe  by  an  imaginary  liqueur  like 
maraschino.  But  that's  because  they  never  tasted  sloe-gin." 

Vereker  thinks  he  may  conclude  that  Fenwick  is  talking  for 
talk's  sake,  and  humours  him.  He  can  get  to  the  memory-subject 
later. 

"A  patient  of  mine,"  he  says,  "who's  been  living  at  Spezzia, 
was  telling  me  about  a  fruit  that  was  very  good  there,  diosperi 
he  called  them.  They  must  be  very  unlike  sloes  by  his  descrip- 
tion." 

"And  naturally  sloes  made  you  think  of  them.  I  wonder  what 

they  are — diosperi — diosperi "  He  repeated  the  word  as 

though  trying  to  recall  it.  Dr.  Conrad  helped  the  identification. 

"He  said  they  are  what  the  Japs  call  jelly-plums — great  big 
fruit,  very  juicy." 

"I  know.  They're  persimmons,  or  a  sort  of  persimmons.  We 
used  to  get  lots  of  them  in  California,  and  even  up  at  the 
Klondyke.  .  .  ." 

He  stopped  abruptly  and  remained  silent.  A  sudden  change 
in  him  was  too  marked  to  escape  notice,  and  there  could  be  no 
doubt  about  the  cause.  The  doctor  walked  beside  him,  also 
silent,  for  a  few  paces.  Then  he  spoke: 


404  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"You  will  have  to  bear  this,  Fenwick,  and  keep  your  head.  It 
is  just  as  I  told  you  it  would  be.  It  is  all  coming  back."  He 
laid  his  left  hand  on  his  companion's  shoulder  as  they  stood  side- 
by-side  on  the  chalk  pathway,  and  with  his  right  felt  the  wrist 
that  was  nearest  him.  Fenwick  was  in  a  quiver  all  through  his 
frame,  and  his  pulse  was  beating  furiously  as  Dr.  Conrad's  finger 
touched  it.  But  he  spoke  with  self-control,  and  his  step  was 
steady  as  they  walked  on  slowly  together  the  moment  after. 

"It's  all  coming  back.  It  has  come  back.  I  shall  remember 
all  in  time."  Then  he  repeated  Vereker's  words,  "I  must  keep 
my  head.  I  shall  have  to  bear  this,"  and  walked  on  again  in 
silence.  The  young  man  beside  him  still  felt  he  had  best  not 
speak  yet.  Just  let  the  physical  perturbation  subside.  Talking 
would  only  make  it  worse. 

They  may  have  walked  so  for  two  minutes  before  Fenwick 
spoke  again.  Then  he  roused  himself,  to  say,  with  but  little  hint 
in  his  voice  of  any  sense  of  the  oddity  of  his  question:  "Which 
is  my  dream? — this  or  the  other?"  Then  added:  "That's  the 
question  I  want  to  ask,  and  nobody  can  answer." 

"And  of  course  all  the  while  each  of  us  knows  perfectly  well 
the  answer  is  simply  'Neither.'  You  are  a  man  that  has  had  an 
accident,  and  lost  his  memory.  Be  patient,  and  do  not  torment 
yourself.  Let  it  take  its  own  time." 

"All  right,  doctor!  Patience  is  the  word."  He  spoke  in  an 
undertone — a  voice  of  acquiescence,  or  rather  obedience.  "Per- 
haps it  will  not  be  so  bad  when  I  remember  more."  They  walked 
on  again. 

Then  Vereker,  noting  that  during  silence  he  brooded  under  the 
oppression  of  what  he  had  already  recovered  from  the  past,  and 
to  all  appearance  struck,  once  or  twice,  on  some  new  unwelcome 
vein  of  thought,  judging  from  a  start  or 'a  momentary  tension  of 
the  arm  that  now  held  his,  decided  that  it  would  be  as  well  to 
speak  to  him  now,  and  delay  no  longer. 

"Has  anything  come  back  to  you,  so  far,  that  will  unsettle 
your  present  life?" 

"No,  no — not  that,  thank  God!  Not  so  far  as  I  can  see.  But 
much  that  must  disquiet  it;  it  cannot  be  otherwise." 

"Do  you  mind  telling  me?" 

"No,  surely,  dear  fellow! — surely  I  will  tell  you.     Why  should 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  405 

I  not?  But  what  I  say  to  you  don't  repeat  to  Sally  or  her  mother. 
Not  just  now,  you  know.  Wait!" 

There  was  a  recess  in  the  wall  of  mortar-bedded  flints  that  ran 
along  the  path,  which  would  give  shelter  from  the  wind  to  light  a 
cigar.  Fenwick  stopped  and  took  two  from  a  cigar-case,  Sally's 
present  to  him  last  Christmas,  and  offered  one  to  Dr.  Conrad, 
who,  however,  didn't  want  to  smoke  so  early.  He  lighted  his  own 
in  the  recess,  with  only  a  slight  tremor  of  the  hand,  barely  visible 
even  to  Vereker's  experienced  eye;  and  then,  as  he  threw  away 
the  match,  said,  without  anything  that  could  be  called  emotion, 
though  always  with  an  apparent  sense  of  his  bewilderment  at  his 
own  words: 

"I  am  that  man  Harrisson  that  was  in  all  the  newspapers  just 
about  the  time  of  the — you  remember — when  I  ..." 

Vereker  failed  for  the  moment  to  grasp  the  degree  of  his  own 
astonishment,  and  used  the  residuum  of  his  previous  calmness 
to  say: 

"I  remember.     The  time  of  your  accident." 

"Am  I  that  man?  I  mean  ought  I  to  say  'I  am  that  man'? 
I  know  I  was  that  man,  in  my  old  dream.  I  know  it  now,  in 
this  one." 

"Well,  but — so  much  the  better!  You  are  a  millionaire,  Fen- 
wick,  with  mines  at  Klondyke.  .  .  ." 

Dr.  Conrad  had  been  so  taken  aback  at  the  suddenness  of  the 
extraordinary  revelation  that  his  amazement  was  quite  at  a  loss 
for  means  of  expression.  A  delayed  laugh,  not  unmixed  with  a 
gasp,  expressed  nothing — merely  recorded  a  welcome  to  the  good 
side  of  it.  For,  of  course,  when  one  hears  of  Golconda  one  is 
bound  to  think  it  good,  failing  evidence  to  the  contrary. 

"Yes,  I  was  that  man — Algernon  Harrisson.  Now,  the  ques- 
tion is — and  you'll  have  to  help  me  here,  Vereker.  Don't  look 
so  thunderstruck,  old  chap — Shall  I  be  that  man  again  or  not?" 

"Why  not,  in  Heaven's  name?  How  can  you  help  it?"  The 
speaker  is  too  dumbfounded,  so  far,  to  be  able  to  get  the  whip 
hand  of  the  circumstances.  But  the  pace  may  be  slacker 
presently. 

"Let's  be  steady!"  Fenwick's  voice,  as  he  says  this,  has  a 
sense  of  ease  in  it,  as  though  he  were  relieved  by  his  disclosure. 
He  takes  Vereker's  arm  in  his  again,  and  as  they  walk  on  to- 


406  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

gether  is  evidently  on  good  terms  with  his  cigar — so  the  doctor 
thinks — and  the  tremor  has  gone  from  his  hands.  A  short  pause, 
and  he  goes  on  speaking:  "Until  we  pitched  on  the  Klondyke  just 
now  I  knew  nothing  of  this.  I  shall  get  it  all  back  in  time.  Let 
me  see!  .  .  ." 

The  doctor  recovered  his  presence  of  mind.  "Stop  a  minute," 
said  he.  "Do  you  know,  Fenwick,  if  I  were  you  I  shouldn't  try 
to  tell  anything  until  you're  clearer  about  the  whole  thing. 
Don't  talk  to  me  now.  Wait  till  you  are  in  a  state  to  know  how 
much  you  wish  to  tell."  But  Fenwick  would  have  none  of  this. 
He  shook  his  head  decidedly. 

"I  must  talk  to  some  one  about  it.  And  my  wife  I  can- 
not. .  .  ." 

"Why  not?" 

"You  will  see.  You  need  not  be  frightened  of  too  many  con- 
fidences. I  haven't  recollected  any  grave  misdemeanours  yet. 
I'll  keep  them  to  myself  when  they  come.  Now  listen  to  what 
I  can  and  do  recollect  pretty  clearly."  He  paused  a  second,  as 
if  his  first  item  was  shaky;  then  said,  "Yes! — of  course."  And 
went  on  as  though  the  point  were  cleared  up. 

"Of  course!  I  went  up  to  the  Klondyke  almost  in  the  first 
rush,  in  '97.  I'll  tell  you  all  about  that  after.  Others  besides 
myself  became  enormously  rich  that  summer,  but  I  was  one  of 
the  luckiest.  However,  I  don't  want  to  tell  you  about  Harrisson 
at  Klondyke — (that's  how  I  find  it  easiest  to  think  of  myself, 
third  person  singular!) — but  to  get  at  the  thing  in  the  dream, 
that  concerns  me  most  now.  Listen!  .  .  .  Only  remember  this, 
Vereker  dear!  I  can  only  recall  jagged  fragments  yet  awhile. 
I  have  been  stunned,  and  can't  help  that.  .  .  ."  He  stopped  the 
doctor,  who  was  about  to  speak,  with:  "I  know  what  you  are 
going  to  say;  let  it  stand  over  a  bit — wait  and  be  patient — all 
that  sort  of  game!  All  very  good  and  sensible,  but  I  can't!" 

"Can't?" 

"No!  Can't — simply  can't.  Because,  look  you!  One  of  the 
things  that  has  come  back  is  that  I  am  a  married  man — by  which 
I  mean  that  Harrisson  was.  Oh  dear!  It  is  such  an  ease  to  me 
to  think  of  Harrisson  as  somebody  else.  You  can't  understand 
that."  But  Vereker  is  thoroughly  discomposed. 

"But  didn't  you  say — only  just  now — there  was  nothing — 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  407 

nothing — to  unsettle  your  present  life?  No;  I  can't  understand 
— I  can't  understand."  His  reply  is  to  Fenwick's  words,  but  the 
reference  is  to  the  early  part  of  his  speech. 

"You  will  understand  it  better  if  I  tell  you  more.  Let  me  do 
it  my  own  way,  because  I  get  mixed,  and  feel  as  if  I  might  lose 
the  clue  any  moment.  All  the  time  I  was  with  the  Clemenceaux 
at  Ontario  I  was  a  married  man — I  mean  that  I  Tcnew  I  was  a 
married  man.  And  I  remember  knowing  it  all  that  time.  In- 
deed, I  did!  But  if  you  ask  me  who  my  wife  was — she  wasn't 
there,  you  know;  you've  got  all  that  clear? — why,  I  can't  tell 
you  any  more  than  Adam!  All  I  know  is  that  all  that  time  little 
Ernestine  was  growing  from  a  girl  to  a  woman,  the  reason  I  felt 
there  could  be  no  misunderstanding  on  that  score  was  that 
Clemenceau  and  his  wife  knew  quite  well  I  had  been  married  and 
divorced  or  something — there  was  something  rum,  long  before — 
and  you  know  Papists  would  rather  the  Devil  outright  than  have 
their  daughter  marry  a  divorced  man.  But  as  to  who  the  wife 
had  been,  and  what  it  was  all  about  .  .  ." 

He  stopped  again  suddenly,  seizing  Vereker  by  the  arm  with 
a  strong  hand  that  trembled  as  it  had  done  before.  His  face 
went  very  white,  but  he  kept  self-possession,  as  it  were  mechanic- 
ally; so  completely  that  the  long  ash  on  his  half-smoked  cigar 
remained  unbroken.  He  waited  a  moment,  and  then  spoke  in  a 
controlled  way. 

"I  can  remember  nothing  of  the  story;  or  what  seems  to  come 
I  know  is  only  confusion  ...  by  things  in  it  .  .  ."  Vereker 
thought  it  might  be  well  to  change  the  current  of  his  thoughts. 

"Who  were  the  Clemenceaux  at  Ontario?"  said  he. 

"Of  course,  I  ought  to  tell  you  that.  Only  there  were  so  many 
things.  Clemenceau  was  a  jeweller  at  Ontario.  I  lived  in  the 
flat  over  his  shop,  and  used  to  see  a  great  deal  of  his  family.  I 
must  have  lived  almost  entirely  among  French  Canadians  while 
I  was  there — it  was  quite  three  or  four  years.  .  .  ." 

"And  all  that  time,  Fenwick,  you  thought  of  yourself  as  a 
married  man?" 

"Married  or  divorced — yes.    And  long  before  that." 

"It  is  quite  impossible  for  me — you  must  see  it — to  form 
any  picture  in  my  mind  of  how  the  thing  presents  itself  to 
you." 


408  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Quite." 

"It  seems — to  me — perfectly  incredible  that  you  should  have 
no  recollection  at  all  of  the  marriage,  or  divorce,  or  whatever  it 
was.  .  .  ." 

"I  did  not  say  I  had  no  recollection  at  all.  Listen.  Don't 
you  know  this,  Vereker? — of  course  you  do,  though — how  one 
wakes  from  a  hideous  dream  and  remembers  exactly  the  feeling 
it  produced,  and  how  the  same  feeling  comes  back  when  one  re- 
calls from  the  dream  some  fragment  preserved  from  all  one  has 
forgotten  of  it — something  nowise  horrible  in  itself,  but  from  its 
associations  in  the  dream?" 

"Oh  yes,  perfectly!" 

"Well — that's  my  case.  When  I  try  to  bring  back  the 
memories  I  know  I  must  have  had  at  that  time  in  Canada,  noth- 
ing comes  back  but  a  horror — something  like  a  story  read  in  boy- 
hood and  shuddered  at  in  the  night — but  all  details  gone.  I 
mean  all  details  with  horror  in  them.  Because,  do  you 
know?  .  .  ." 

"Yes ?"  Vereker  stopped  beside  him  on  the  path,  as  Fen- 
wick  stopped  and  hesitated.  Utter  perplexity  almost  forbidding 
speech  was  the  impression  the  doctor  received  of  his  condition  at 
this  moment.  After  a  moment's  silence  he  continued: 

"You  will  hardly  believe  me,  but  almost  the  only  thing  I  can 
revive — that  is,  have  revived  so  far — is  an  occurrence  that  must 
needs  at  the  time  have  been  a  happiness  and  a  delight.  And  yet 
it  now  presents  itself  to  me  as  an  excruciating  torment — as  part 
of  some  tragedy  in  which  I  had  to  be  an  actor,  but  of  which  I  can 
seize  no  detail  that  does  not  at  once  vanish,  leaving  mere  pain 
and  confusion." 

"What  was  it?    You  don't  mind  .  .  ." 

"Mind  telling  you?  Oh  no! — why  should  I?  I  may  be 
happier  if  I  can  tell  it.  It's  like  this.  I  am  at  a  railway-station 
in  the  heat  somewhere,  and  am  expecting  a  girl  who  is  coming  to 
marry  me.  I  can  remember  the  heat  and  our  meeting,  and  then 
all  is  Chaos  again.  Then,  instead  of  remembering  more,  I  go 
over  and  over  again  the  old  thing  as  at  first.  ...  No!  nothing 
new  presents  itself.  Only  the  railway-station  and  the  palm-trees 
in  the  heat.  And  the  train  coming  slowly  in,  and  my  knowing 
that  she  is  in  it,  and  coming  to  marry  me." 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  409 

"Do  you  mean  that  the  vision — or  scene — in  your  mind  stops 
dead,  and  you  don't  see  her  get  out  of  the  carriage?" 

They  .had  walked  on  slowly  again  a  short  distance.  Fenwick 
made  another  halt,  and  as  he  flicked  away  a  most  successful  crop 
of  cigar-ash  that  he  had  been  cultivating — so  it  struck  Vereker — 
as  a  kind  of  gauge  or  test  of  his  own  self-control,  he  answered: 

"I  couldn't  say  that.  Hardly!  I  see  a  girl  or  woman  get  out 
of  the  carriage,  but  not  her.  .  .  .!" 

Vereker  was  completely  at  a  loss — began  to  be  a  little  afraid 
his  companion's  brain  might  be  giving  way.  "How  can  you  tell 
that,"  said  he,  "unless  you  know  who  she  ought  to  have  been?" 

Fenwick  resumed  his  walk,  and  when  he  replied  did  so  in  a 
voice  that  had  less  tension  in  it,  as  though  something  less  painful 
had  touched  his  mind: 

"It's  rum,  I  grant  you.  But  the  whole  thing  is  too  rum  to 
bear  thinking  of — at  least,  to  bear  talking  about.  As  to  the 
exact  reason  why  I  know  it's  not  her,  that's  simple  enough!" 

"What  is  it?" 

"Because  Mrs.  Fenwick  gets  out  of  the  train — my  Rosey,  here, 
Sally's  mother.  And  it's  just  the  same  with  the  only  other  ap- 
proach to  a  memory  that  connects  itself  with  it — a  shadowy, 
indistinct  ceremony,  also  in  the  heat,  much  more  indistinct  than 
the  railway-station.  My  real  wife's  image — Rosey's,  here — just 
takes  the  place  at  the  altar  where  the  other  one  should  be,  and 
prevents  my  getting  at  any  recollection  of  her.  It  is  the  only 
thing  that  makes  the  dream  bearable." 

Vereker  said  nothing.  He  did  not  want  to  disturb  any  lull  in 
the  storm  in  his  companion's  mind.  After  a  slight  pause  the 
latter  continued: 

"The  way  I  account  for  it  seems  to  me  sufficient.  I  cannot 
conceive  any  woman  being  to  me  what  ...  or,  perhaps  I  should 
express  it  better  by  saying  I  cannot  connect  the  wife-idea  with 
any  image  except  hers.  And,  of  course,  the  strong  dominant  idea 
displaces  the  feeble  memory." 

Vereker  was  ready  with  an  unqualified  assent  at  the  moment. 
For  though  Sally,  as  we  have  seen,  had  taken  him  into  her  con- 
fidence the  day  after  her  mother's  wedding — and,  indeed,  had 
talked  over  the  matter  many  times  with  him  since — the  actual 
truth  was  far  too  strange  to  suggest  iteelf  offhand,  as  it  would 


410  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

have  been  doing  had  the  doctor  connected  the  fact  that  Sally's 
mother  went  out  to  India  to  be  married  with  this  meeting  of  two 
lovers  at  a  simmering  railway-station,  name  not  known.  The 
idea  of  the  impossible  per  se  is  probably  the  one  a  finite  intel- 
ligence most  readily  admits,  and  is  always  cordially  welcome  in 
intellectual  difficulties — a  universal  resolution  of  logical  discords. 
In  the  case  of  these  two  men,  at  that  moment,  neither  was  capable 
of  knowing  the  actual  truth  had  he  been  told  it,  whatever  the 
evidence;  still  less  of  catching  at  slight  connecting-links.  Fen- 
wick  went  on  speaking: 

"I  don't  know  whether  you  will  understand  it — yes!  I  think, 
perhaps,  you  might — that  it's  a  consolation  to  me  this  way  Mrs. 
Fenwick  comes  in.  It  seems  to  bring  fresh  air  into  what  else 
would  be — ugh!"  He  shuddered  a  half-intentional  shudder; 
then,  dropping  his  voice,  went  on,  speaking  quickly:  "The  thing 
makes  part  of  some  tragedy — some  sad  story — something  best 
forgotten!  If  I  could  only  dare  to  hope  I  might  remember  no 
more — might  even  forget  it  altogether." 

"Perhaps  if  you  could  remember  the  whole  the  painfulness 
might  disappear.  Does  not  anything  in  the  image  of  the  rail- 
way-station give  a  clue  to  its  whereabouts?" 

"No.  It  hardly  amounts  to  an  image  at  all — more  a  fact  than 
an  image.  But  the  heat  was  a  fact.  And  the  dresses  were  all 
white — thin — tropical.  .  .  ." 

"Then  the  Mrs.  Fenwick  that  comes  out  of  the  train  isn't 
dressed  as  she  dresses  here?" 

"Why,  n-n-no!  .  .  .  No,  certainly  not.  But  that's  natural, 
you  know.  Of  course,  my  mind  supplies  a  dress  for  the  heat." 

"It  doesn't  diminish  the  puzzlement." 

"Yes — yes — but  it  does,  though.  Because,  look  here!  It's 
not  the  only  thing.  I  find  myself  consciously  making  Rosey  look 
younger.  I  can't  help  my  mind — my  now  mind — working,  do 
what  I  will!  But  as  to  where  it  was,  I  fancy  I  have  a  clue.  I 
can  remember  remembering — if  you  understand  me — that  I  had 
been  in  Australia — remembered  it  at  Ontario — talked  about  it 
to  Tina  Clemenceau.  .  .  ." 

If  Vereker  had  had  any  tendency  to  get  on  a  true  scent  at  this 
point,  the  reference  to  Australia  would  have  thrown  him  off  it. 
And  the  thought  of  the  Canadian  girl  took  Fenwick's  mind  once 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  411 

more  to  his  American  life:  "It  was  my  thinking  of  that  girl  made 
all  this  come  back  to  me,  you  know.  Just  after  you  left  us,  when 
we  were  throwing  stones  in  the  sea,  last  night.  .  .  ." 

"Throwing  stones  in  the  sea?  .  .  ." 

"Yes — we  went  down  to  the  waves  on  the  beach,  and  my 
throwing  a  stone  in  reminded  me  of  it  all,  after.  I  was  just 
going  to  get  to  sleep,  when,  all  of  a  sudden,  what  must  I  think  of 
but  Niagara! — at  least,  the  rapids.  I  was  standing  with 
Mademoiselle  Tina — no  one  else — on  a  rock  overlooking  the  great 
torrent,  and  I  threw  a  stone  in,  and  she  said  no  one  would  ever  see 
that  stone  again.  I  said,  'Like  a  man  when  he  dies  and  is  for- 
gotten/ or  something  of  that  sort.  I  recollect  her  now — poor 
r-hild! — turning  her  eyes  full  on  me  and  saying,  'But  I  should  not 
forget  you,  Mr.  Harrisson.'  You  see  how  it  was  ?  Only  it  seems 
a  sort  of  disloyalty  to  the  poor  girl  to  tell  it.  It  was  all  plain, 
and  she  meant  it  to  be.  I  can't  remember  now  whether  I  said,  'I 
can't  marry  you,  Tina,  because  I  don't  know  that  my  wife  is 
dead/  or  whether  I  only  thought  it.  But  I  know  that  I  then 
knew  I  was,  or  had  been,  married  and  divorced  or  deserted.  And 
it  was  that  unhappy  stone  that  brought  it  all  back  to  me." 

"Are  you  sure  of  that?" 

"Quite  sure  that  began  it.  I  was  just  off,  and  some  outlying 
scrap  of  my  mind  was  behindhand,  and  that  stone  saw  it  and 
pounced  on  it.  I  remembered  more  after  that.  I  know  I  was 
rather  glad  to  start  off  to  the  new  gold  river,  because  of  Ernestine 
Clemenceau.  I  don't  think  I  should  have  cared  to  marry  Ernes- 
tine. Anyhow,  I  didn't.  She  seems  to  me  Harrisson's  affair 
now.  Don't  laugh  at  me,  doctor!" 

"I  wasn't  laughing."  And,  indeed,  this  was  true.  The  doctor 
was  very  far  from  laughing. 

They  had  walked  some  little  way  inland,  keeping  along  a  road 
sunk  in  the  chalk.  This  now  emerged  on  an  exposed  hill-side, 
swept  by  the  sea  wind;  which,  though  abated,  still  made  talk  less 
easy  than  in  the  sheltered  trench,  or  behind  tlie  long  wall  where 
Fenwick  lit  his  cigar.  Vereker  suggested  turning  back;  and,  ac- 
cordingly, they  turned.  The  doctor  found  time  to  make  up  his 
mind  that  no  harm  could  be  done  now  by  referring  to  his  inter- 
view with  Rosalind,  the  day  before. 

"Your  wife  told  me  yesterday  that  you  had  just  had  a  tiresom« 


412  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

recurrence  when  you  came  out  after  us — at  the  jetty-end,  you 
know." 

"Surely!  So  I  had.  Did  she  tell  you  what  it  was?"  Evi- 
dently, in  the  stress  and  turmoil  of  his  subsequent  experience  in 
the  night,  it  had  slipped  from  him.  The  doctor  said  a  reminding 
word  or  two,  and  it  came  back. 

"I  know,  I  know.  I've  got  it  now.  That  was  last  night.  But 
now — that  again !  Why  was  it  so  horrible  ?  That  was  dear  old 
Kreutzkammer,  at  'Frisco.  What  could  there  be  horrible  about 
him?  ..."  A  clear  idea  shot  into  the  doctor's  mind — not  a 
bad  thing  to  work  on. 

"Fen wick! — don't  you  see  how  it  is?  These  things  are  only 
horrible  to  you  because  you  half  recollect  them.  The  pain  is  only 
the  baffled  strain  on  the  memory,  not  the  thing  you  are  trying  to 
recover." 

"Very  likely."  He  assents,  but  his  mind  is  dwelling  on 
Kreutzkammer,  evidently.  For  he  breaks  into  a  really  cheerful 
laugh,  pleasant  in  the  ears  of  his  companion.  "Why,  that  was 
Diedrich  Kreutzkammer!"  he  exclaims,  "up  at  that  Swiss  place. 
And  I  didn't  know  him  from  Adam!" 

"Of  course  it  was.  But  look  here,  Fenwick — isn't  what  I  say 
true?  Half  the  things  that  come  back  to  you  will  be  no  pain 
at  all  when  you  have  fairly  got  hold  of  them.  Only,  wait!  Don't 
struggle  to  remember,  but  let  them  come." 

"All  right,  old  chap!  I'll  be  good."  But  he  has  no  very 
strong  convictions  on  the  subject,  clearly.  The  two  walk  on 
together  in  silence  as  far  as  the  low  flint  wall,  in  another  recess  of 
which  Fenwick  lights  another  cigar,  as  before.  Then  he  turns  to 
the  doctor  and  says: 

"Not  a  word  of  this  to  Eosey — nor  to  Sallykin !"  The  doctor 
seems  perplexed,  but  assents  and  promises.  "Honest  Injun! — 
as  Sally  says,"  adds  Fenwick.  And  the  doctor  repeats  that 
affidavit,  and  then  says: 

"I  shall  have  to  finesse  a  good  deal.  I  can  manage  with  Mrs. 
Fenwick.  But — I  wish  I  felt  equally  secure  with  Miss  Sally." 
He  feels  very  insecure  indeed  in  that  quarter,  if  the  truth  is  told. 
And  he  is  afflicted  with  a  double  embarrassment  here,  as  he  has 
never  left  Sally  without  her  "miss"  in  speaking  to  Fenwick, 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  holds  a  definite  licence  from  her 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  413 

mother — is,  as  it  were,  a  chartered  libertine.  But  that's  a  small 
matter,  after  all.  The  real  trouble  is  having  to  look  Sally  in  the 
face  and  conceal  anything. 

"Miss  who?"  says  Fenwick.  "Oh — Sally,  you  mean!  Of 
course  she'll  rush  the  position.  Trust  her!"  He  can't  help 
laughing  as  he  thinks  of  Sally,  with  Dr.  Conrad  vainly  trying  to 
protect  his  outworks. 

The  momentary  hesitation  about  how  to  speak  of  Sally  may 
have  something  to  do  with  Vereker's  giving  the  conversation  a 
twist.  It  turns,  however,  on  a  point  that  has  been  waiting  in 
his  mind  all  through  their  interview,  ever  since  Fenwick  spoke  of 
his  identity  with  Harrisson. 

"Look  here,  Fenwick,"  he  says.  "It's  all  very  fine  your  talk- 
ing about  keeping  Mrs.  Fenwick  in  the  dark  about  this.  I  know 
it's  for  her  own  sake — but  you  can't." 

"And  why  not?  I  can't  have  Rosey  know  I  have  another  wife 
living.  .  .  ." 

"You  don't  know  she's  alive,  for  one  thing!" 

"H'm!  ...  I  don't  know,  certainly.  But  I  should  have 
known,  somehow,  if  she  were  dead.  Of  course,  if  further  memory 
or  inquiry  proves  that  she  is  dead,  that's  another  matter." 

"But,  in  the  meanwhile,  how  can  you  prove  your  identity  with 
Harrisson  and  claim  all  your  property  without  her  know- 
ing? .  .  .  What  I  mean  is,  I  can't  think  it  out.  There  may  be 
a  way.  .  .  ." 

"My  dear  boy" — Fenwick  says  this  very  quietly — "that's 
exactly  the  reason  why  I  said  you  would  have  to  help  me  to  settle 
whether  I  should  be  that  man  again  or  not.  I  say  not,  if  the 
decision  lies  with  me." 

"Not? — not  at  all?  The  doctor  fairly  gasps;  his  breath  is 
taken  away.  Never  perhaps  was  a  young  man  freer  from 
thought  and  influence  of  money  than  he,  more  absorbed  in  pro- 
fessional study  and  untainted  by  the  supremacies  of  property. 
But  for  all  that  he  was  human,  and  English,  and  theoretically 
accepted  gold  as  the  thing  of  things,  the  one  great  aim  and 
measure  of  success.  Of  other  men's  success,  that  is,  and  their 
aim,  not  his.  For  he  was,  in  his  own  eyes,  a  humble  plodder,  not 
in  the  swim  at  all.  But  he  ascribed  to  the  huge  sums  real  people 
had  a  right  to,  outside  the  limits  of  the  likes  of  him,  a  kind  of 


414  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

sacredness  that  grew  in  a  geometrical  ratio  with  their  increase. 
It  gave  him  much  more  pain  to  hear  that  a  safe  had  been  robbed 
of  thousands  in  gold  than  he  felt  when,  on  opening  a  wrapped-up 
fee,  what  seemed  a  guinea  to  the  touch  turned  out  a  new  farthing 
and  a  shilling  to  the  sight.  It  was  in  the  air  that  he  lived  in — 
that  all  of  us  live  in. 

So,  when  Fenwick  made  in  this  placid  way  a  choice  of  conduct 
that  must  needs  involve  the  sacrifice  of  sums  large  enough  to  be 
spoken  of  with  awe,  even  in  the  sacred  precincts  of  a  bank,  poor 
Dr.  Conrad  felt  that  all  his  powers  of  counsel  had  been  out- 
shot,  and  that  his  mind  was  reeling  on  its  pedestal.  That  a  poor 
man  should  give  up  his  savings  en  bloc  to  help  a  friend  would 
have  seemed  to  him  natural  and  reasonable;  that  he  should  do  so 
for  honest  love  of  a  woman  still  more  so;  but  that  a  millionaire 
should  renounce  his  millions!  Was  it  decent?  was  it  proper? 
was  it  considerate  to  Mammon?  But  that  must  have  been  Fen- 
wick's  meaning,  too.  The  doctor  did  not  recover  his  speech  be- 
fore Fenwick  spoke  again: 

"Why  should  I  claim  all  my  property?  How  should  I  be  the 
gainer  if  it  made  Kosey  unhappy?" 

"I  see.  I  quite  see.  I  feel  with  you,  you  know;  feel  as  you 
do.  But  what  will  become  of  the  money?" 

"The  poor  darling  money?  Just  think!  It  will  lie  neglected 
at  the  bank,  unclaimed,  forsaken,  doing  no  more  mischief  than 
when  it  was  harmless  dust  and  nuggets  in  the  sand  of  the  Klon- 
dyke.  While  it  was  there,  gold  was  a  bit — a  mighty  small  bit — 
dearer  than  it  has  become  since.  Now  that  it  is  in  the  keeping 
of  chaps  who  won't  give  it  up  half  as  easily  as  the  Klondyke  did, 
I  suppose  it  has  appreciated  again,  as  the  saying  is.  The  differ- 
ence of  cost  between  getting  it  out  of  the  ground  and  out  of  the 
bank  is  a  negligible  factor.  .  .  ."  Fenwick  seemed  to  find  ease- 
in  chatting  economics  in  this  way.  Some  of  it  was  so  obviously 
true  to  Vereker  that  he  at  once  concluded  it  would  be  classed 
among  fallacies;  he  had  had  experience  of  this  sort  of  thing. 
But  he  paid  little  attention,  as  he  was  thinking  of  how  much  of 
this  interview  he  could  repeat  to  Sally,  to  whom  every  step  they 
took  brought  him  nearer.  The  roar  of  a  lion  in  his  path  was 
every  moment  more  audible  to  the  ears  of  his  imagination.  And 
it  left  him  silent;  but  Fenwick  went  on  speaking: 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  415 

"We  won't  trouble  about  the  darling  dust  and  nuggets;  let 
them  lie  in  pawn,  and  wait  for  a  claimant.  They  won't  find  Mr. 
Harrisson's  heir-at-law  in  a  hurry.  If  ever  proof  comes  of  the 
death  of  Mrs.  Harrisson — whoever  she  was — I'll  be  Mr.  Harris- 
son  again.  Till  then  .  .  ." 

"Till  then  what?" 

"Till  then,  Vereker  dear" — Fenwick  said  this  very  seriously, 
with  emphasis — "till  then  we  shall  do  most  wisely  to  say  nothing 
further  to  Mrs.  Fenwick  or  to  Sally.  You  must  see  that  it  won't 
be  possible  to  pick  and  choose,  to  tell  this  and  reserve  that.  I 
shall  speak  of  the  recurrences  of  memory  that  come  to  me,  as 
too  confused  for  repetition.  I  shall  tell  lies  about  them  if  I 
think  it  politic.  Because  I  can't  have  Rosey  made  miserable  on 
any  terms.  As  for  the  chick,  you'll  have  to  manage  the  best  you 
can." 

"I'll  do  my  best,"  the  doctor  says,  without  a  particle  of  confi- 
dence in  his  voice.  "But  about  yourself,  Fenwick?" 

"I  shall  do  very  well,  as  long  as  I  can  have  a  chat  with  you 
now  and  again.  You've  no  idea  what  a  lot  of  good  it  has  done 
me,  this  talking  to  you.  And,  of  course,  I  haven't  told  you  one- 
tenth  of  the  things  I  remember.  There  was  one  thing  I  wanted 
to  say  though  just  now,  and  we  got  off  the  line — what  was  it 
now?  Oh,  I  know,  about  my  name.  It  wasn't  really  Harrisson." 

"Not  really  Harrisson  ?  What  was  it  then?"  What  next,  and 
next? — is  the  import  of  the  speaker's  face. 

"I'll  be  hanged  if  I  know!  But  it's  true,  rum  as  it  seems.  I 
know  I  knew  it  wasn't  Harrisson  every  time  I  signed  a  cheque  in 
America.  But  as  for  what  it  was,  that  all  belongs  to  the  dim 
time  before.  Isn't  that  them  coming  to  meet  us?" 

Yes,  it  was.  And  there  was  something  else  also  the  doctor  had 
had  it  on  his  tongue  to  say,  and  it  had  got  away  on  a  siding. 
But  it  didn't  matter — it  was  only  about  whether  the  return  of 
memory  had  or  had  not  been  due  to  the  galvanic  battery  on  the 
pier. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

OF  THE  DOCTOR'S  CAUTIOUS  RESERVE,  AND  MRS.  FENWICK's  STRONG 
COMMON-SENSE.  AND  OF  A  LADY  AT  BUDA-PESTH.  HOW  HARRISSON 
WAS  ONLY  PAST  FORGOTTEN  NEWSPAPERS  TO  DR.  VEREKER.  OF  THE 
OCTOPUS'S  PULSE.  HOW  THE  HABERDASHER'S  BRIDE  WOULD  TRY  ON 
AT  TWO  GUAS.  A  WEEK,  AND  OF  A  PLEASANT  WALK  BACK  FROM  THE 
RAILWAY  STATION 

"You  never  mean  to  say  you've  been  in  the  water?" 

It  was  quite  clear,  from  the  bluish  finger-tips  of  the  gloveless 
merpussy — for  at  St.  Sennans  sixes  are  not  de  rigueur  in  the 
morning — that  she  has  been  in,  and  has  only  just  come  out.  But 
Fenwick,  who  asked  the  question,  grasped  a  handful  of  loose 
black  hair  for  confirmation,  and  found  it  wet. 

"Haven't  I  ?"  says  the  incorrigible  one.  "And  you  should  have 
heard  the  rumpus  over  getting  a  machine  down." 

"She's  a  selfish  little  monkey,"  her  mother  says,  but  forgiv- 
ingly, too.  "She'll  drown  herself,  and  not  care  a  penny  about  all 
the  trouble  she  gives."  You  see,  Rosalind  wouldn't  throw  her 
words  into  this  callous  form  if  she  was  really  thinking  about  the 
merpussy.  But  just  now  she  is  too  anxious  about  Gerry  to  be 
very  particular. 

What  has  passed  between  him  and  Dr.  Conrad?  What  does 
the  latter  know  now  more  than  she  does  herself  ?  She  falls  back 
with  him,  and  allows  the  other  two  to  go  on  in  front.  Obviously 
the  most  natural  arrangement. 

"What  has  he  told  you,  Dr.  Conrad?"  This  is  not  unexpected, 
and  the  answer  is  a  prepared  one,  preconcerted  under  pressure 
between  the  doctor  and  his  conscience. 

"I  am  going  to  ask  you,  Mrs.  Fenwick,  to  do  me  a  very  great 
kindness — don't  say  yes  without  hearing  what  it  is — to  ask  you 
to  allow  me  to  keep  back  all  your  husband  says  to  me,  and  to  take 
for  granted  that  he  repeats  to  you  all  he  feels  certain  of  himself  in 
his  own  recollections." 

416 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  417 

"He  has  told  you  more?" 

"Yes,  he  has.  But  I  am  far  from  certain  that  anything  he 
has  said  can  be  relied  upon — in  his  present  state.  Anyway,  I 
should  be  very  sorry  to  take  upon  myself  the  responsibility  of 
repeating  it." 

"He  wishes  you  not  to  do  so?" 

"I  think  so.     I  should  say  so.     Do  you  mind?" 

"I  won't  press  you  to  repeat  anything  you  wish  to  keep 
back.  But  is  his  mind  easier?  After  all,  that's  the  main 
point." 

"That  is  my  impression — much  easier."  He  felt  he  was  quite 
warranted  in  saying  this.  "And  I  should  say  that  if  he  does  not 
himself  tell  you  again  whatever  he  has  been  saying  to  me,  it  will 
only  show  how  uncertain  and  untrustworthy  all  his  present  recol- 
lections are.  I  cannot  tell  you  how  strongly  I  feel  that  the  best 
course  is  to  leave  his  mind  to  its  own  natural  development.  It 
may  even  be  that  the  partial  and  distorted  images  of  events  such 
as  he  has  been  speaking  of  to  me  .  .  ." 

"I  mustn't  ask  you  what  they  were  ?  .  .  .     Yes,  go  on." 

"May  again  become  dim  and  disappear  altogether.  If  they 
are  to  do  so,  nothing  can  be  gained  by  dwelling  on  them  now — 
still  less  by  trying  to  verify  them — and  least  of  all  by  using  them 
as  a  stimulus  to  further  recollection." 

"You  think  I  had  better  not  ask  him  questions?" 

"Exactly.  Leave  him  to  himself.  Keep  his  mind  on  other 
matters — healthy  occupations,  surrounding  life.  I  am  certain 
of  one  thing — that  the  effort  to  disinter  the  past  is  painful  to 
him  in  itself,  quite  independent  of  any  painful  associations  in 
what  he  is  endeavouring  to  recall." 

"I  have  seen  that,  too,  in  the  slight  recurrences  he  has  had 
when  I  was  there.  I  quite  agree  with  you  about  the  best  course 
to  pursue.  Let  us  have  patience  and  wait." 

Of  course,  Vereker  had  not  the  remotest  conception  that  the 
less  Fenwick  remembered,  the  better  his  wife  would  be  pleased. 
So  the  principal  idea  in  his  mind  at  that  moment  was,  what  a 
very  sensible  as  well  as  handsome  woman  he  was  talking  to!  It 
was  the  way  in  which  most  people  catalogued  Rosalind  Fenwick. 
But  her  ready  assent  to  his  wishes  had  intensified  the  doctor's 
first  item  of  description.  A  subordinate  wave  of  his  thought 


418  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

created  an  image  of  the  girl  Fenwick  must  have  pictured  to  him- 
self coming  out  of  the  railway  carriage.  He  only  repeated:  "Let 
us  have  patience,  and  wait,"  with  a  feeling  of  relief  from  possible 
further  catechism. 

But  in  order  to  avoid  showing  his  wish  to  abate  inquiry,  he 
could  talk  about  aspects  of  the  case  that  would  not  involve  it. 
He  could  tell  of  analogous  cases  well  known,  or  in  his  own  prac- 
tice. For  instance,  that  of  a  Frenchwoman  who  wandered  away 
from  Amiens,  unconscious  of  her  past  and  her  identity,  and  some- 
how got  to  Buda-Pesth.  There,  having  retained  perfect  powers 
of  using  her  mother-tongue,  and  also  speaking  German  fluently, 
she  had  all  but  got  a  good  teachership  in  a  school,  only  she  had 
no  certificate  of  character.  With  a  great  effort  she  recalled  the 
name  of  a  lady  at  Amiens  she  felt  she  could  write  to  for  one, 
and  did  so.  "Fancy  her  husband's  amazement,"  said  Dr.  Con- 
rad, "when,  on  opening  a  letter  addressed  to  his  wife  in  her  own 
handwriting,  he  found  it  was  an  application  from  Fraulein 
Schmidt,  or  some  German  name,  asking  for  a  testimonial!"  He 
referred  also  to  the  many  cases  of  the  caprices  of  memory  he  had 
met  with  in  his  studies  of  the  petit-mal  of  epilepsy,  a  subject  to 
which  he  had  given  special  attention.  It  may  have  crossed  his 
mind  that  his  companion  had  fallen  very  thoroughly  in  with  his 
views  about  not  dissecting  her  husband's  case  overmuch  for  the 
present.  But  he  put  it  down,  if  it  did,  to  her  strong  common- 
sense.  It  is  rather  a  singular  thing  how  very  ready  men  are  to 
ascribe  this  quality — whatever  it  is — to  a«  beautiful  woman. 
Especially  if  she  agrees  with  them. 

Nevertheless  the  doctor  was  not  very  sorry  when  he  saw  that 
Sally  and  Fenwick,  on  in  front,  had  caught  up  with — or  been 
caught  up  with  by — a  mixed  party,  of  a  sort  to  suspend,  divert, 
or  cancel  all  conversation  of  a  continuous  sort.  Miss  Gwendolen 
Arkwright  and  her  next  eldest  sister  had  established  themselves 
on  Fenwick's  shoulders,  and  the  Julius  Bradshaws  had  just  in- 
tersected them  from  a  side-alley.  The  latter  were  on  the  point 
of  extinction;  going  back  to  London  by  the  3.15,  and  everything 
packed  but  what  they  had  on.  It  was  a  clear  reprieve,  till  3.15 
at  any  rate. 

There  could  be  no  doubt,  thought  Eosalind  to  herself,  that  her 
husband's  conversation  with  Vereker  had  made  him  easier  in  his 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  419 

mind  than  when  she  saw  him  last,  just  after  breakfast.  No 
doubt  he  was  all  the  better,  too,  for  the  merpussy's  account  of 
her  exploit  on  the  beach;  of  how  she  managed  to  overrule  old 
Gabriel  and  get  a  machine  put  down,  contrary  to  precedent,  com- 
mon caution,  and  public  opinion — even  in  the  face  of  urgent 
remonstrance  from  her  Swiss  acquaintance,  almost  as  good  a 
swimmer  as  herself;  how  she  had  picked  out  a  good  big  selvage- 
wave  to  pop  in  under,  and  when  she  got  beyond  it  enjoyed  all 
the  comfort  incidental  to  being  in  bed  with  the  door  locked. 
Because,  you  see,  she  exaggerated.  However,  one  thing  she  said 
was  quite  true.  There  were  no  breakers  out  beyond  the  said 
selvage-wave,  because  the  wind  had  fallen  a  great  deal,  and 
seemed  to  have  given  up  the  idea  of  making  any  more  white 
foam-crests  for  the  present.  But  there  would  be  more  wind 
again  in  the  night,  said  authority.  It  was  only  a  half-holiday 
for  Neptune. 

Sally's  bracing  influence  was  all  the  stronger  from  the  fact  of 
her  complete  unconsciousness  of  anything  unusual.  Her  mother 
had  said  nothing  to  her  the  day  before  of  the  revival  of  Baron 
Kreutzkammer,  nor  had  Dr.  Conrad,  acting  under  cautions  given. 
And  all  Sally  knew  of  the  wakeful  night  was  that  her  mother 
had  found  Fenwick  walking  about,  unable  to  sleep,  and  had  said 
at  breakfast  he  might  just  as  well  have  his  sleep  out  now.  To 
which  she  had  agreed,  and  had  then  gone  away  to  see  if  "the 
Tishies,"  as  she  called  them,  were  blown  away,  and  had  met  the 
doctor  coming  to  see  if  she  was.  So  she  was  in  the  best  of  moods 
as  an  antidote  to  mind-cloudage.  And  Fenwick,  under  the 
remedy,  seemed  to  her  no  more  unlike  himself  than  was  to  be 
expected  after  not  a  wink  till  near  daylight.  The  object  of  this 
prolixity  is  that  it  may  be  borne  in  mind  that  Sally  never  shared 
her  mother's  or  her  undeclared  lover's  knowledge  of  the  strange 
mental  revival  caused — as  seemed  most  probable — by  the  action 
of  the  galvanic  battery  on  the  previous  day. 

Vereker  walked  back  to  his  Octopus,  whom  he  had  forsaken 
for  an  unusually  long  time,  with  his  brain  in  a  whirl  at  the 
strange  revelation  he  had  just  heard.  His  medical  experience 
had  put  him  well  on  his  guard  anent  one  possibility — that  the 
whole  thing  might  be  delusion  on  Fenwick's  part.  How  could 


420  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

such  an  imperfect  memory-record  be  said  to  prove  anything  with- 
out confirmation  from  without? 

His  habits  of  thought  had  qualified  him  to  keep  this  possibility 
provisionally  in  the  background  without  forgetting  it.  There 
was  nothing  in  the  mere  knowledge  of  its  existence  to  prevent  his 
trying  to  recall  all  he  could  of  the  story  of  the  disappearance  of 
Harrisson,  as  he  read  it  in  the  newspapers  a  year  and  a  half  ago. 
There  had  been  a  deal  of  talk  about  it  at  the  time,  and  great 
efforts  had  been  made  to  trace  Harrisson,  but  without  success. 
The  doctor  lingered  a  little  on  his  way,  conscious  that  he  could 
recall  very  little  of  the  Harrisson  case,  but  too  interested  to  be 
able  to  leave  his  recollections  dormant  until  he  should  get  sub- 
stantial information.  The  Octopus  could  recollect  all  about  it 
no  doubt,  but  how  venture  to  apply  to  her?  Or  how  to  Sally? 
Though,  truly,  had  he  done  so,  it  would  have  been  with  much  less 
hope  of  a  result.  Neither  Sally  nor  her  mother  were  treasure- 
houses  of  the  day's  gossip,  as  his  mother  was.  "We  must  have 
taken  mighty  little  notice  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  world  at 
the  time/'  so  thought  the  doctor  to  himself. 

What  did  he  actually  recollect?  A  paragraph  headed  "Dis- 
appearance of  a  Millionaire"  in  a  hurried  perusal  of  an  evening 
paper  as  he  rode  to  an  urgent  case;  a  repetition — several  repeti- 
tions— on  the  newspaper  posters  of  the  name  Harrisson  during 
the  fortnight  following,  chiefly  disclosing  supposed  discoveries 
of  the  missing  man,  sandwiched  with  other  discoveries  of  their 
falsehood — clue  and  disappointment  by  turns.  He  could  re- 
member his  own  perfectly  spurious  interest  in  the  case,  produced 
by  such  announcements  staring  at  him  from  all  points  of  the 
compass,  and  his  own  preposterous  contributions  to  talk-making 
about  them,  such  as  "Have  they  found  that  man  Harrisson  yet  ?" 
knowing  himself  the  merest  impostor  all  the  while,  but  feeling  it 
dutiful  to  be  up-to-date.  How  came  no  one  of  them  all  to  put 
two  and  two  together? 

A  gleam  of  a  solution  was  supplied  to  the  doctor's  mind  when 
he  set  himself  to  answer  the  question,  "How  should  I  have  gone 
about  suspecting  it?"  How,  indeed?  Ordinary  every-day  people 
— you's  and  me's — can't  lightly  admit  to  our  minds  the  idea  that 
we  have  actually  got  mixed  up  with  the  regular  public  people  in 
the  newspapers.  Have  not  even  our  innocent  little  announce- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  421 

ments  that  we  have  been  born,  or  died,  or  got  married,  always 
had  a  look  of  having  got  in  by  accident,  or  under  some  false 
pretence?  Have  we  not  felt  inflated  when  a  relation  of  ours 
has  had  a  letter  to  a  newspaper  inserted,  in  real  print,  with  his 
own  name  as  bold  as  brass?  Vereker  was  not  surprised,  on  think- 
ing it  over,  that  he  personally  had  missed  the  clue.  And  if  he, 
why  not  others?  Besides,  all  the  Harrisson  talk  had  been  super- 
seded by  some  more  exciting  matter  before  it  had  been  recognised 
as  possible  that  Fenwick's  memory  might  never  come  back. 

Just  as  he  arrived  at  Mrs.  Iggulden's  a  thought  struck  him — 
not  heavily;  only  a  light,  reminding  flick — and  he  stopped  a 
minute  to  see  what  it  had  to  say.  It  referred  to  his  interview 
with  Scotland  Yard,  some  six  weeks  after  Fenwick's  first  appear- 
ance. 

He  could  recall  that  in  the  course  of  his  interview  one  of  the 
younger  officials  spoke  in  an  undertone  to  his  chief;  who  thereon, 
after  consideration,  turned  to  the  doctor  and  said,  "Had  not  your 
man  a  panama  hat?  I  understood  you  to  say  so;"  and  on  receiv- 
ing an  affirmative  reply,  spoke  again  in  an  undertone  to  his  sub- 
ordinate to  the  effect,  half-caught  by  Vereker,  that  "Alison's  hat 
was  black  felt."  Did  he  say  by  any  chance  Harrisson,  not 
Alison?  If  so,  might  not  that  account  for  a  rather  forbidding 
or  opposive  attitude  on  the  Yard's  part?  He  remembered  some- 
thing of  fictitious  claimants  coming  forward,  representing  them- 
selves as  Harrisson — desperate  bidders  for  a  chance  of  the  Klon- 
dyke  gold.  They  might  easily  have  supposed  this  man  and  his 
quenched  memory  another  of  the  same  sort.  Evidently  if  in- 
vestigation was  not  to  suffer  from  overgrown  suspicion,  only 
young  and  guileless  official  instinct  could  be  trusted — plain- 
clothes  ingenus.  Dr.  Conrad  laughed  to  himself  over  a  particu- 
larly outrageous  escapade  of  Sally's,  who,  when  her  mother  said 
they  always  sent  such  very  young  chicks  of  constables  to  Glen- 
moira  Road  in  the  morning,  impudently  ascribed  them  to  in- 
spector's eggs,  laid  overnight. 

"My  pulse — feel  it!"  His  Goody  mother  greeted  the  doctor 
with  a  feeble  voice  from  inarticulate  lips,  and  a  wrist  out- 
stretched. She  was  being  moribund;  to  pay  him  out  for  being 
behindhand. 


422  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

He  skipped  all  interims,  and  said,  with  negligible  inaccuracy, 
"It's  only  a  quarter  past." 

"Don't  talk,  but  feel!"  Her  failing  senses  could  indulge  a 
little  impatience;  but  it  was  like  throwing  ballast  out  of  a  balloon. 
She  meant  to  be  all  the  worse  directly. 

Her  son  felt  the  outstretched  wrist,  and  was  relieved  to  find 
it  normal — almost  abnormally  normal,  just  before  lunch!  But 
he  had  to  pretend.  A  teaspoonful  of  brandy  in  half  a  glass  of 
water,  clearly!  He  knew  she  hated  it,  but  she  had  better  swallow 
it  down.  That  was  right !  And  he  would  hurry  Mrs.  Iggulden 
with  lunch.  However,  Mrs.  Iggulden  had  been  beforehand,  hav- 
ing seen  her  good  gentleman  coming  and  the  table  all  laid  ready, 
so  she  got  the  steak  on,  only  she  knew  there  would  something 
happen  if  too  much  hurry  and  sure  enough  she  broke  a  decan- 
ter. We  do  not  like  the  responsibility  of  punctuation  in  this 
sentence. 

"I  thought  you  had  forgotten  me,"  quoth  the  revived  Goody 
io  her  son,  assisting  her  to  lunch.  But  the  excellent  woman  said 
me  (as  if  it  was  the  name  of  somebody  else,  and  spelt  M  double 
E)  with  a  compassionate  moan. 

Rosalind  was  glad  to  see  her  husband  in  good  spirits  again. 
He  was  quite  like  himself  before  that  unfortunate  little  galvanic 
battery  upset  everything.  Perhaps  its  effect  would  go  off,  and 
all  he  had  remembered  of  the  past  grow  dim  again.  It  was  a 
puzzle,  even  to  Rosalind  herself,  that  her  natural  curiosity  about 
all  Gerry's  unknown  history  should  become  as  nothing  in  view 
of  the  unwelcome  contingencies  that  history  might  disclose.  It 
spoke  well  for  the  happiness  of  the  status  quo  that  she  was  ready 
to  forego  the  satisfaction  of  this  curiosity  altogether  rather  than 
confront  its  possible  disturbing  influences.  "If  we  can  only 
know  nothing  about  it,  and  be  as  we  are!"  was  the  thought  upper- 
most in  her  mind. 

It  certainly  was  a  rare  piece  of  good  luck  that,  owing  to  Sally's 
leaving  the  house  before  Fenwick  appeared,  and  running  away 
to  her  madcap  swim  before  he  could  join  her  and  the  doctor, 
she  had  just  avoided  seeing  him  during  the  worst  of  his  de- 
pression. Indeed,  his  remark  that  he  had  not  slept  well  seemed 
to  account  for  all  she  had  seen  in  the  morning.  And  in  the 
afternoon,  when  the  whole  party,  minus  the  doctor,  walked  over 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  423 

to  St.  Egbert's  Station  for  the  honeymoon  portion  of  it  to  take 
its  departure  for  towL,  and  the  other  three  to  say  farewells, 
Fenwick  was  quite  in  his  usual  form.  Only  his  wife  watched 
for  any  differences,  and  unless  it  was  that  he  gave  way  rather 
more  freely  than  usual  to  the  practice  of  walking  with  his  arm 
round  herself  or  Sally,  or  hoth,  she  could  detect  nothing.  As  the 
road  they  took  was  a  quiet  one,  and  they  met  scarcely  a  soul,  no 
exception  on  the  score  of  dignity  was  taken  to  this  by  Rosalind; 
and  as  for  Sally,  her  general  attitude  was  "Leave  Jeremiah  alone 
— he  shall  do  as  he  likes."  Laetitia's  mental  comment  was  that 
it  wasn't  Oxford  Street  this  time,  and  so  it  didn't  matter. 

"I  shall  walk  straight  into  papa's  library,"  said  that  young 
married  lady  in  answer  to  an  inquiry  from  Sally,  as  they  fell 
back  a  little  to  chat.  "I  shall  just  walk  straight  in  and  say  we've 
come  back." 

"What  do  you  suppose  the  Professor  will  say?" 

"My  dear! — it's  the  merest  toss  up.  If  he's  got  some  very 
interesting  Greek  or  Phoenician  nonsense  on  hand,  he'll  let  me 
kiss  him  over  his  shoulder  and  say,  'All  right — I'm  busy.'  If 
it's  only  the  Cosmocyclopa?dia  work — which  he  doesn't  care  about, 
only  it  pays — he  may  look  up  and  kiss  me,  or  even  go  so  far  as 
to  say:  'Well! — and  where's  master  Julius?'  But  I  don't  expect 
he'll  give  any  active  help  in  the  collision  with  mamma,  which  is 
sure  to  come.  I  rather  hope  she  won't  be  at  home  the  first 
time." 

"Why?  Wouldn't  it  be  better  to  have  it  over  and  done  with?" 
Sally  always  wants  to  clinch  everything. 

"Yes,  of  course;  only  the  second  time  mamma's  edge  will  be 
all  taken  off,  and  she'll  die  down.  Besides,  the  crucial  point  is" 
Paggy  kissing  her.  It's  got  to  be  done,  and  it  will  be  such  a  deal 
easier  if  I  can  get  Theeny  and  Classy  kissed  first."  Classy  was 
the  married  sister,  Clarissa.  "After  all,  mamma  must  have  got 
a  shred  of  common-sense  somewhere,  and  she  must  know  that 
when  things  can  neither  be  cured  nor  endured  you  have  to  pre- 
tend, sooner  or  later." 

"You  bottle  up  when  it  comes  to  that,"  said  Sally  philo- 
sophically. "But  I  shouldn't  wonder,  Tishy,  if  you  found  your 
Goody  aggravating,  too.  She'll  talk  about  haberdashers." 


424  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Oh,  my  dear,  haberdashers  are  a  trifle!  If  that  was  all  she 
might  talk  herself  hoarse.  Besides,  I  can  stop  that  by  the  mantle 
department." 

"What  about  it?  Oh,  I  know,  though! — about  your  being 
worth  two  guineas  a  week  to  try  on.  She  would  know  you  were 
not  serious,  though." 

"Would  she?  I'm  not  so  sure  about  it  myself — not  sure  I'm 
not  serious,  I  mean." 

"Oh,  Tishy!  You  don't  mean  you  would  go  and  try  on  at  two 
guineas  a  week?" 

"I  really  don't  know,  Sally  dear.  If  I'm  to  have  my  husband's 
profession  flung  in  my  face  at  every  turn,  I  may  just  as  well 
have  the  advantage  of  it  by  a  side-wind.  Think  what  two  guineas 
a  week  means!  A  hundred  and  four  guineas  a  year — remember! 
guineas,  not  pounds.  And  Paggy  thinks  he  could  get  it  arranged 
for  us  to  go  out  and  dine  together  in  the  middle  of  the  day  at  an 
Italian  restaurant.  .  .  ." 

"I  say,  what  a  lark!"  Sally  immediately  warms  up  to  the 
scheme.  "I  could  come,  too.  Do  you  know,  Tishy  dear,  I  was 
just  going  to  twit  you  with  the  negro  and  his  spots.  But  now 
I  won't." 

The  Julius  Bradshaws  must  have  reached  home  early,  as  our 
story  will  show  later  that  the  anticipated  collision  with  the 
Dragon  took  place  the  same  evening.  No  great  matter  for  sur- 
prise, this,  to  any  one  who  has  noticed  the  energetic  impatience  for 
immediate  town-event  in  folk  just  off  a  holiday.  These  two 
were  too  keen  to  grapple  with  their  domestic  problem  to  allow 
of  delays.  So,  after  getting  some  dinner  in  a  hurry  at  Georgiana 
Terrace,  Bayswater,  they  must  needs  cab  straight  away  to  Lad- 
broke  Grove  Road.  As  for  what  happened  when  they  got  there, 
we  shall  know  as  much  as  we  want  of  it  later.  For  the  present 
our  business  lies  with  Fenwick  and  his  wife;  to  watch,  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  latter,  for  the  next  development  in  the  strange 
mental  state  of  the  former,  and  to  hope  with  her,  as  it  must  be 
confessed,  for  continued  quiescence;  or,  better  still,  for  a  complete 
return  of  oblivion. 

It  seemed  so  cruelly  hard  to  Rosalind  that  it  might  not  be. 
What  had  she  to  gain  by  the  revival  of  a  forgotten  past — a  past 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  425 

her  own  share  of  which  she  had  for  twenty  years  striven  to  for- 
get? Utterly  guiltless  as,  conceivably,  she  may  have  known  her- 
self to  be,  she  had  striven  against  that  past  as  the  guilty  strive 
with  the  memory  of  a  concealed  crime.  And  here  was  she,  at  the 
end  of  this  twenty  years,  with  all  she  most  longed  for  at  the 
beginning  in  her  possession,  mysteriously  attained  with  a 
thoroughness  no  combination  of  circumstances,  no  patience  or 
forbearance  of  her  own,  no  self-restraint  or  generosity  of  her 
young  husband's  could  possibly  have  brought  about.  Think  only 
of  what  we  do  know  of  this  imperfect  story!  Conceive  that  it 
should  have  been  possible  for  the  Algernon  Palliser  of  those  days 
to  know  and  understand  it  to  the  full;  indulge  the  supposition, 
however  strained  it  may  be,  that  his  so  knowing  it  would  not 
have  placed  him  in  a  felon's  dock  for  the  prompt  and  righteous 
murder  of  the  betrayer — we  take  the  first  convenient  name — of 
the  woman  he  loved.  Convince  yourself  this  could  have  been; 
figure  to  yourself  a  happy  wedded  life  for  the  couple  after  Miss 
Sally  had  made  her  unconscious  debut  with  the  supremest  indif- 
ference to  her  antecedents ;  construct  a  hypothetical  bliss  for  them 
at  all  costs,  and  then  say  if  you  can  fill  out  the  picture  with  a 
relation  between  Sally  and  her  putative  father  to  be  compared  for 
a  moment  to  the  one  chance  has  favoured  now  for  the  stepfather 
and  stepdaughter  of  our  story. 

Our  own  imagination  is  at  fault  about  the  would-have-beens 
and  might-have-beens  in  this  case.  The  only  picture  our  mind 
can  form  of  what  would  have  followed  a  full  grasp  of  all  the 
facts  by  Algernon  Palliser  may  be  dictated  or  suggested  by  a 
memory  of  what  sent  Mr.  Salter,  of  Livermore's  Rents,  1808,  to 
the  hospital.  Rosalind  knew  nothing  of  Mr.  Salter,  but  she  could 
remember  well  all  Gerry's  feats  of  strength  in  his  youth — all  the 
cracking  of  walnuts  in  his  arm-joints  and  bending  of  kitchen- 
pokers  across  his  neck — and  also,  too  well,  an  impotence  against 
his  own  anger  when  provoked;  it  had  died  down  now  to  a  trifle, 
but  she  could  detect  the  trifle  still.  Was  such  an  executive  to  be 
trusted  not  to  take  the  law  into  its  own  hands,  to  fall  into  the 
grasp  of  an  offended  legislative  function  later — one  too  dull  to 
be  able  to  define  offence  so  as  to  avoid  the  condemnation,  now 
and  again,  of  a  culprit  whose  technical  crime  has  the  applause 
of  the  whole  human  race?  Had  the  author  of  all  her  wrongs 


426  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

met  his  death  at  the  hands  of  her  young  husband,  might  not  this 
husband  of  her  later  life — beside  her  now — be  still  serving  his 
time  at  the  galleys,  with  every  compulsory  sharer  in  his  con- 
demnation thinking  him  a  hero? 

It  was  all  so  much  better  as  it  had  turned  out.  Only,  could  it 
remain  so? 

At  least,  nothing  was  wrong  now,  at  this  moment.  Whatever 
her  husband  had  said  to  Vereker  in  that  morning  walk,  the 
present  hour  was  a  breathing-space  for  Rosanlind.  The  Kreutz- 
kammer  recurrence  of  the  previous  evening  was  losing  its  force 
for  her,  and  there  had  been  nothing  since  that  she  knew  of. 
"Chaotic  ideas" — the  phrase  he  had  used  in  the  night — might 
mean  anything  or  nothing. 

They  came  back  from  the  railway-station  by  what  was  known 
to  them  as  the  long  short  cut  in  contradistinction  to  the  short 
short  cut.  The  latter,  Sally  said,  had  the  courage  of  its  opinions, 
while  the  former  was  a  time-serving  cut.  Could  she  have  in- 
fluenced it  at  the  first  go-off — when  it  originally  started  from 
the  V-shaped  stile  your  skirts  stuck  in,  behind  the  Wheatsheaf — 
it  might  have  mustered  the  resolution  to  go  straight  on,  instead 
of  going  off  at  a  tangent  to  Gattrell's  Farm,  half  a  mile  out  of 
the  way.  Was  it  intimidated  by  a  statement  that  trespassers 
would  be  prosecuted,  nailed  to  an  oak-tree,  legible  a  hundred 
years  ago,  perhaps,  when  its  nails  were  not  rust,  and  really  held 
it  tight — instead  of,  as  now,  merely  countenancing  its  wish  to 
remain  from  old  habit?  It  may  have  been  so  frightened  in  its 
timid  youth;  but  if  so,  surely  the  robust  self-assertion  of  its 
straight  start  for  Gattrell's  had  in  it  something  of  contempt  for 
the  poor  old  board,  coupled  with  its  well-known  intention  of  turn- 
ing to  the  left  and  going  slap  through  the  wood  the  minute  you 
(or  it)  got  there.  It  may  even  have  twitted  that  board  with  its 
apathy  in  respect  of  trespassers.  Had  the  threat  ever  been  carried 
out? 

The  long  short  cut  was,  according  to  the  aborigines,  a  goodish 
step  longer  than  the  road,  geometrically.  But  there  was  some 
inner  sense — moral,  ethical,  spiritual — somehow  metaphysical  or 
supraphysical — in  which  it  was  a  short  cut,  for  all  that.  The 
road  was  a  dale  farther,  some  did  say,  along  of  the  dust.  But, 
then,  there  was  no  dust  now,  because  it  was  all  laid.  So  the 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  427 

reason  why  was  allowed  to  lapse,  and  the  fact  to  take  care  of 
itself  for  once.  Helped  by  an  illusion  that  a  path  through  an 
undergrowth  of  nut-trees  and  an  overgrowth  of  oak  on  such  a 
lovely  afternoon  as  this  wasn't  distance  at  all — even  when  you 
got  hooked  in  the  brambles — and  by  other  palliative  incidents, 
it  was  voted  a  very  short  cut  indeed.  Certainly  not  too  long  for 
Rosalind's  breathing-space,  and  had  it  been  even  a  longer  short 
cut  she  would  have  been  well  contented. 

Every  hour  passed  now,  without  a  new  recurrence  of  some  by- 
gone, was  going  to  give  her — she  knew  it  well  beforehand — a 
sense  of  greater  security.  And  every  little  incident  on  the  walk 
that  made  a  change  in  the  rhythm  of  event  was  welcome.  When 
they  paused  for  refreshments — ginger-beer  in  stone  bottles — at 
Gattrell's,  and  old  Mrs.  Gattrell,  while  she  undid  the  corks,  out- 
lined the  troubles  of  her  husband's  family  and  her  own,  she  felt 
grateful  for  both  to  have  kept  clear  of  India  and  "the  colonies." 
No  memories  of  California  or  the  Arctic  Circle  could  arise  from 
Mrs.  Gattrell's  twin-sister  Debory,  who  suffered  from  informa- 
tion— internal  information,  mind  you;  an  explanation  necessary 
to  correct  an  impression  of  overstrain  to  the  mind  in  pursuit  of 
research.  Nor  from  her  elder  sister  Hannah,  whose  neuralgic 
sick  headaches  were  a  martyrdom  to  herself,  but  apparently  a 
source  of  pride  to  her  family.  Of  which  the  inflation,  strange 
to  say,  was  the  greater  because  Dr.  Knox  was  of  opinion  that 
they  would  yield  to  treatment  and  tonics;  though  the  old  lady 
herself  was  opposed  to  both,  and  said  elder-flower-water.  She 
was  a  pleasant  old  personage,  Mrs.  Gattrell,  who  always  shone 
out  as  a  beacon  of  robust  health  above  a  fever-stricken,  paralysed, 
plague-spotted,  debilitated,  and  disintegrating  crowd  of  blood- 
relations  and  connexions  by  marriage.  But  not  one  of  all  these 
had  ever  left  the  soil  they  were  born  on,  none  of  Mrs.  GattrelPs 
people  holding  with  foreign  parts.  And  nothing  whatever  had 
ever  taken  place  at  St.  Egbert's  till  the  railway  come;  so  it  wasn't 
likely  to  arouse  mernories  of  the  ice-fields  of  the  northern  cold  or 
the  tiger-hunts  of  the  southern  heat. 

Rosalind  found  herself  asking  of  each  new  thing  as  it  arose: 
"Will  this  bring  anything  fresh  to  his  mind,  or  will  it  pass?" 
The  wood-path  the  nut-tree  growth  all  but  closed  over  on  either 
side  she  decided  was  safe;  it  could  taste  of  nothing  but  his 


428  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

English  school-boyhood,  before  ever  she  knew  him.  But  the 
sudden  uprush  of  the  covey  of  partridges  from  the  stubble,  and 
their  bee-line  for  a  haven  in  the  next  field — surely  danger  lay 
that  way?  Think  what  a  shot  he  was  in  the  old  days!  However, 
he  only  said,  "Poor  dears,  they  don't  know  how  near  the  thirty- 
first  is,"  and  seemed  to  be  able  to  know  that  much  from  past 
experience  without  discomfort  at  not  knowing  more. 

When  Sally  proposed  fortune-telling  in  connexion  with  a 
bona-fide  gipsy  woman,  who  looked  (she  said)  exactly  like  in 
"Lavengro,"  her  mother's  first  impulse  was  to  try  and  recall  if 
she  and  the  Gerry  of  old  times  had  ever  been  in  contact  with 
gipsies,  authentic  or  otherwise,  and,  after  decision  in  the  nega- 
tive, to  feel  that  this  wanderer  was  more  welcome  than  not,  as 
having  a  tendency  to  conduct  his  mind  safely  into  new  channels. 
Even  the  conclave  of  cows  he  had  to  disperse  that  they  might 
get  through  a  gate — cows  that  didn't  mind  how  long  they  waited 
at  it,  having  time  on  their  hands — suggested  the  same  kind  of 
query.  She  was  rapidly  getting  to  look  at  everything  from  the 
point  of  view  of  what  it  was  going  to  remind  her  husband  of. 
She  must  struggle  against  the  habit  that  was  forming,  or  it 
would  become  insupportable.  But  then,  again,  the  thought 
would  come  back  that  every  hour  that  passed  without  an  alarm 
was  another  step  towards  a  safe  haven ;  and  who  could  say  that  in 
a  week  or  so  things  might  not  be,  at  least,  no  worse  than  they  were 
before  this  pestilent  little  galvanic  battery  broke  in  upon  her 
peace  ? 

The  fact  that  he  had  spoken  of  new  memories  to  Vereker 
and  had  not  repeated  them  to  her  was  no  additional  source  of 
uneasiness;  rather,  if  anything,  the  contrary.  For  she  could  not 
entertain  the  idea  that  Gerry  would  keep  back  from  her  anything 
he  could  tell  to  Vereker.  What  had  actually  happened  was  neces- 
sarily inconceivable  by  her — that  a  recollected  recollection  of 
his  own  marriage  with  her  should  be  interpreted  by  him  as  a 
memory  of  a  marriage  with  some  other  woman  unknown,  who 
might,  for  anything  he  knew,  be  still  living;  that  his  inference 
as  to  the  bearing  of  this  on  his  own  conduct  was  that  he  should 
refrain,  at  any  cost  to  himself,  from  claiming,  so  to  speak,  his 
own  identity;  should  accept  the  personality  chance  had  forced 
upon  him  for  her  sake;  should  even  forego  the  treasure  of  her 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  429 

sympathy,  more  precious  far  to  him  than  the  heavy  score  to  his 
credit  at  the  banks  of  New  York  and  San  Francisco,  rather  than 
dig  up  what  needs  must  throw  doubt  on  the  validity  of  their 
marriage,  and  turn  her  path  of  life,  now  smooth,  to  one  of  stones 
and  thorns.  For  that  was  the  course  he  had  sketched  out  for 
himself;  and  had  it  only  been  possible  for  oblivion  to  draw  a 
sharp  line  across  the  slowly  reviving  record,  and  to  say  to 
memory:  "Thus  far  shalt  thou  go,  and  no  farther,"  Fenwick 
might  have  persevered  in  this  course  successfully  till  now.  And 
then  all  our  story  would  have  been  told — at  least,  as  far  as  Rosa- 
lind and  Fenwick  go.  And  we  might  say  farewell  to  them  at 
this  moment  as  the  cows  reluctantly  surrender  passage-way  of 
the  long  short  cut,  and  Gerry  saunters  on,  seemingly  at  ease  from 
his  own  mind's  unwelcome  activities,  with  Sally  on  one  arm  and 
his  wife  in  the  other,  and  Mrs.  Grundy  nowhere.  But  no  con- 
spiracies are  possible  to  memory  and  oblivion.  They  are  a  couple 
that  act  independently  and  consult  nobody's  convenience  but 
their  own. 

It  may  easily  be  that  Rosalind,  had  she  been  mistress  of  all  the 
facts  and  taken  in  the  full  position,  would  have  decided  to  run 
the  risks  incidental  to  confronting  her  husband  with  his  own 
past — taken  him  into  her  confidence  and  told  him.  With  the 
chance  in  view  that  his  reason  might  become  unsettled  from  the 
chronic  torment  of  constant  half-revivals  of  memory,  would  it 
not  almost  be  safer  to  face  the  acute  convulsion  of  a  sudden 
eclaircissement — to  put  happiness  to  the  touch,  and  win  or  lose 
it  all?  Sally  could  be  got  out  of  the  way  for  long  enough  to 
allow  of  a  resumption  of  equilibrium  after  the  shock  of  the  first 
disclosure  and  a  completely  established  understanding  that  she 
must  not  be  told,  come  what  might.  Supposing  that  she  could 
tell,  and  he  could  hear,  the  whole  story  of  twenty  years  ago  bet- 
ter than  when  a  terrible  position  warped  it  for  teller  and  hearer 
in  what  had  since  become  to  her  an  intolerable  dream — supposing 
this  done,  and  each  could  understand  the  other,  might  not  the 
very  strangeness  of  the  fact  that  the  small  new  life  that  played 
so  large  a  part  in  that  dream  had  become  Sally  since,  and  was 
the  only  means  by  which  Sally  could  have  been  established,  might 
not  this  tell  for  peace?  Might  it  not  even  raise  the  question, 
"What  does  a  cloud  of  twenty  years  ago  matter  at  all?"  and  sug- 


430  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

gest  the  answer,  "Nothing?  For  did  not  Sally  come  to  us  out  of 
the  cloud,  and  could  we  do  without  her?" 

But  Rosalind's  half-insight  into  the  patchwork  of  her  hus- 
band's perceptions  warranted  no  step  so  decisive.  Rather,  if  any- 
thing, it  pointed  to  a  gradual  resumption  of  his  status  quo  of  a 
few  days  ago.  After  all,  had  he  not  had  (and  completely  for- 
gotten) recurrences  like  that  of  the  Baron  and  the  fly-wheel? 
Well,  perhaps  the  last  was  a  shade  more  vivid  than  the  others. 
But  then  see  now,  had  he  not  forgotten  it  already  to  all  outward 
seeming? 

So  that  the  minds  of  the  two  of  them  worked  to  a  common  end 
— silence.  Hers  in  the  hope  that  the  effects  of  the  galvanic  cur- 
rent— if  that  did  it — would  die  away  and  leave  him  rest  for  his; 
his  in  the  fear  that  behind  the  unraised  curtain  that  still  hid  his 
early  life  from  himself  was  hidden  what  might  become  a  baleful 
power  to  breed  unrest  for  hers. 

But  it  all  depended  on  his  own  mastery  of  himself.  Except 
he  told  it,  who  should  know  that  he  was  Harrisson?  And  how 
he  felt  the  shelter  of  the  gold!  Who  was  going  to  suspect  that  a 
man  who  could  command  wealth  in  six  figures  by  disclosing  his 
identity,  would  keep  it  a  secret ?  And  for  his  wife's  sake  too!  A 
pitiful  four-  or  five-figure  man  might — yes.  But  hundreds  of 
thousands! — think  of  it! 


CHAPTEK  XXXVni 

OP  AN  EXPEDITION  AGAINST  A  GOODY,  AND  THE  WALK  BACK  TO  LOBJOIT's. 
AND  THE  WALK  BACK  AGAIN  TO  IGCULDEN's.  HOW  FENWICK  TOOK 
VEREKER'S  CONFIDENCE  BY  STORM.  OF  A  COLLIER  THAT  PUT  TO  SEA. 
SUCCESSFUL  AMBUSCADE  OF  THE  OCTOPUS.  PROVISIONAL  EQUI- 
LIBRIUM OF  FENWICK'S  MIND.  WHY  BOTHER  ABOUT  HORACE  ?  WHY 

NOT  ABOUT  PICKWICK  JUST  AS  MUCH  ?      THE  KITTEN  WASN'T  THERE 
— CERTAINLY  NOT! 

So  it  came  about  that  during  the  remainder  of  that  day  and 
part  of  the  next  Fenwick  either  made  no  further  exploration  of 
his  past;  or,  if  he  did  so,  concealed  his  discoveries.  For  he  not 
only  kept  silence  with  Rosalind,  but  even  with  Vereker  was 
absolutely  reserved,  never  alluding  to  their  conversation  of  the 
morning.  And  the  doctor  accepted  this  reserve,  and  asked  no 
questions. 

As  for  Rosalind,  she  was  only  too  glad  to  catch  at  the  support 
of  the  medical  authority  and  to  abstain  from  question  or  sug- 
gestion; for  the  present  certainly,  and,  unless  her  silence — as 
might  be — should  seem  to  imply  a  motive  on  her  part,  to  main- 
tain it  until  her  husband  revived  the  subject  by  disclosing  further 
recollections  of  the  bygone  time.  Happily  Sally  knew  nothing 
about  it;  tliat  her  mother  was  convinced  of.  And  Sally  wasn't 
likely  to  know  anything,  for  Vereker's  professional  discretion 
could  be  relied  on,  even  if  her  suspicions  were  excited.  And, 
really,  except  that  Fenwick  seemed  a  little  drowsy  and  reflective, 
and  that  Rosalind  had  a  semitone  of  consolation  in  her  manner 
towards  him,  there  was  nothing  to  excite  suspicion. 

After  the  cows — this  is  an  expression  borrowed  from  Sally, 
later  in  the  afternoon — conversation  nagged  through  the  rest  of 
the  walk  home.  Except  for  regrets,  more  than  once  expressed, 
that  it  would  be  much  too  late  for  tea  when  we  got  in,  and  a 

431 


432  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

passing  word  on  the  fact  that  at  the  seaside  one  got  as  greedy 
as  some  celebrated  glutton — a  Eoman  emperor,  perhaps — very 
few  ideas  were  interchanged.  But  a  little  conversation  was  made 
out  of  the  scarcity  of  a  good  deal,  for  the  persistent  optimism  of 
Sally  recognised  that  it  was  awfully  jolly  saying  nothing  on  such 
a  lovely  evening.  Slight  fatigue,  combined  with  the  beauty  of 
sky  and  sea  and  distant  downland,  the  lengthening  shadows  of 
the  wheatsheaves,  and  the  scarlet  of  poppies  in  the  stubble, 
seemed  good  to  justify  contemplation  and  silence.  It  was  an 
hour  to  caress  in  years  to  come,  none  the  less  that  it  was  accepted 
as  the  mere  routine  of  daily  life  in  the  short  term  of  its  existence. 
It  was  an  hour  that  came  to  an  end  when  the  party  arrived  at 
the  hedge  of  the  unripe  sloes  that  had  checked  the  onset  of 
Albion  Villas  towards  the  new  town,  and  passed  through  the 
turnstile  Fenwick  and  Vereker  had  passed  through  in  the  morn- 
ing. Then  speech  came  back,  and  each  did  what  all  folk  invari- 
ably do  after  a  long  spell  of  silence — revealed  what  they  were 
being  silent  about,  or  seemed  to  be.  Most  likely  Fenwick's  con- 
tribution was  only  a  blind,  as  his  mind  must  have  been  full  of 
many  thoughts  he  wished  to  keep  to  himself. 

"I  wonder  when  Paganini's  young  woman's  row  with  her 
mother's  going  to  come  off — to-day  or  to-morrow?" 

"I  was  wondering  whether  it  would  come  off  at  all.  I  dare 
say  she'll  accept  the  inevitable."  Thus  Rosalind,  and  for  our 
part  we  believe  this  also  was  not  quite  candid — in  fact,  was  really 
suggested  by  her  husband's  remark.  But  Sally's  was  a  genuine 
disclosure,  and  really  showed  what  her  mind  had  been  running 
on. 

'Tve  been  meditating  a  Crusade,"  she  said,  with  remoteness 
from  current  topics  in  her  voice.  And  both  her  companions 
immediately  made  concessions  to  one  that  seemed  to  them  genuine 
as  compared  with  their  own. 

"Against  whom,  kitten?"  said  her  mother. 

And  Fenwick  reinforced  her  with,  "Yes,  who's  the  Crusade  to 
be  against,  Sarah?" 

"Against  the  Octopus."  And  Sally  says  this  with  the  most 
perfectly  unconscious  gravity,  as  though  a  Crusade  against  an 
octopus  was  a  very  common  occurrence  in  every-day  life.  The 
eyes  of  her  companions  twinkle  a  little  interchange  across  her 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  433 

unseen,  but  are  careful  to  keep  anything  suggesting  a  smile  out 
of  their  voices  as  they  apply  for  enlightenment. 

"Because  of  poor  Prosy/'  Sally  explains.  "You'll  see  now. 
She  won't  allow  him  to  come  round  this  evening,  you  see  if  she 
does!"  She  is  so  intent  upon  her  subject-matter  that  they  might 
almost  have  smiled  aloud  without  detection,  after  all. 

"When's  it  to  come  off,  Sarah — the  Crusade?" 

"I  was  thinking  of  going  round  this  evening  if  he  doesn't 
turn  up." 

"Suppose  we  all  go,"  Fenwick  suggests.  And  Rosalind  as- 
sents. The  Crusade  may  be  considered  organized.  "We'll  give 
him  till  eight-forty-five,"  Sally  says,  forecasting  strategy,  "and 
then  if  he  doesn't  come  we'll  go." 

Eight-forty-five  came,  but  no  doctor.  So  the  Crusade  came 
off  as  arranged,  with  the  result  that  the  Christian  forces,  on 
arriving  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem,  found  that  the 
Octopus  responsible  for  the  personation  of  the  Saracens  had  just 
gone  to  bed.  It  was  an  ill-advised  Crusade,  because  if  the 
Christians  had  only  had  a  little  patience,  the  released  prisoner 
would  have  looked  round  as  soon  as  his  janitor  was  asleep.  As 
it  turned  out,  no  sooner  were  the  visitors'  voices  audible  than  the 
Octopus  became  alive  to  the  pleasures  of  society,  and  renounced 
sleep  in  its  favour.  She  would  slip  something  on  and  come  down, 
and  did  so.  Her  doing  so  was  out  of  keeping  with  the  leading 
idea  of  the  performance,  presenting  the  Paynim  as  an  obliging 
race;  but  a  meek  and  suffering  one,  though  it  never  aired  its 
grievances.  These,  however,  were  the  chief  subjects  of  con- 
versation during  the  visit,  which,  in  spite  of  every  failure  in 
dramatic  propriety,  was  always  spoken  of  in  after  days  as  "the 
Crusade."  It  came  to  an  end  in  due  course,  the  Saracen  host 
retiring  to  bed,  with  bendictions. 

Vereker  walked  back  with  our  friends  to  Mrs.  Lobjoit's 
through  the  sweet  night-air  a  considerate  little  shower  of  rain, 
that  came  down  while  they  were  sympathetically  engaged,  had 
just  washed  clean.  Vapour-drifts  that  were  wavering  between 
earth  and  sky,  and  sacrificing  their  birthright  of  either  cloudship 
or  foghood,  were  accompanying  a  warm  sea-wind  towards  the 
north.  Out  beyond,  and  quite  clear  of  all  responsibility  for  them 


434  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

and  theirs,  was  a  flawless  heaven  with  the  stellar  and  planetary 
universe  in  it,  pitiless  and  passionless  eyes  perhaps — as  Tennyson 
calls  them — and  strange  fires;  but  in  this  case  without  power  to 
burn  and  brand  their  nothingness  into  the  visitors  to  St.  Sennans, 
who  laughed  and  talked  and  smoked  and  took  no  notice;  and, 
indeed,  rather  than  otherwise,  considered  that  Orion's  Belt  and 
Aldebaran  had  been  put  there  to  make  it  a  fine  night  for  them  to 
laugh  and  talk  and  smoke  in. 

It  was  pleasant  to  Vereker,  after  his  walk  with  Fenwick  in  the 
morning,  to  find  the  latter  like  his  usual  cheerful  self  again. 
The  doctor  had  had  rather  a  trying  time  with  his  Goody  mother, 
so  that  the  day  had  been  more  one  of  tension  than  of  peace,  and 
it  was  a  heavenly  respite  to  him  from  filial  duties  dutifully  borne, 
to  walk  home  with  the  goddess  of  his  paradise — the  paradise  that 
was  so  soon  to  come  to  an  end  and  send  him  to  the  release  of  his 
"locum,"  Mr.  Neckitt.  Never  mind.  The  having  such  a  time  to 
look  back  to  in  the  future  was  quite  as  much  as  one  general 
practitioner,  with  a  duty  to  his  mother,  could  in  reason  expect. 
Was  Dr.  Conrad  aware,  we  wonder,  how  much  the  philosophical 
resignation  that  made  this  attitude  of  thought  possible  was  due  to 
the  absence  of  any  other  visible  favoured  applicant  for  Miss  Sally, 
and  the  certainty  that  he  would  see  her  once  or  twice  a  week  at 
least  after  he  had  gone  back  to  his  prescriptions  and  his  diary  of 
cases? 

Probably  he  wasn't;  and  when,  on  arriving  at  Lobjoit's,  Fen- 
wick  announced  that  he  didn't  want  to  go  in  yet,  and  would 
accompany  the  doctor  back  to  Iggulden's  and  take  a  turn  round, 
the  only  misgiving  that  could  try  for  an  insecure  foothold  in  the 
mind  now  given  up  to  a  delirium  it  called  Sally  was  one  that 
Fenwick  might  have  some  new  painful  memory  to  tell.  But  he 
was  soon  at  rest  about  this.  Fenwick  wasn't  going  to  talk  about 
himself.  Very  much  the  reverse,  if  one's  own  reverse  is  some  one 
else.  He  was  going  to  talk  about  the  doctor,  into  whose  arm  he 
slipped  his  own  as  soon  as  he  had  lighted  his  second  cigar.  For 
they  had  not  walked  quick  from  Iggulden's. 

"Now  tell  me  about  Sir  Dioscorides  Nayler  and  the  epilepti- 
form  disorders." 

"Miss  Sally's  been  telling  you.  .  .  ." 

"No,  she  didn't— Sally  did."    Both  laughed.     The  doctor  will 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  435 

make  it  Sally  next  time — that's  understood.  "You  told  Sally 
and  she  told  me.  What's  the  damage  to  be?" 

"How  much  did  Sally  tell  you?"  The  little  formality  comes 
easier  to  the  doctor's  shyness  as  it  figures,  this  time,  quotation- 
wise.  It  is  a  repeat  of  Fenwick's  use  of  it. 

"Sally  said  three  thousand." 

"Yes,  that's  what  I  told  her.  But  it's  not  official.  He  may 
want  more.  He  may  let  me  have  it  for  three.  Only  I  don't 
know  why  I  should  have  it  for  less  than  any  one  else." 

"Never  you  mind  why !  That's  no  concern  of  yours,  my  dear 
boy.  What  you've  got  to  think  of  is  of  yourself  and  Mrs.  Vere- 
ker.  Dioscorides  will  take  care  of  himself — trust  Mm!" 

"Yes,  of  course,  I  have  to  think  of  my  mother."  One  can 
hear  in  the  speaker's  voice  what  may  be  either  self-reproach 
for  having  neglected  this  aspect  of  the  case,  or  very  tolerant 
indictment  of  Fenwick  for  having  mistakenly  thought  he  had 
done  so. 

"What's  the  man  thinking  of?  Of  course  you  have,  but  I 
didn't  mean  your  mother.  She's  a  dear  old  lady" — this  came 
grudgingly — "but  I  didn't  mean  her.  I  meant  the  Mrs.  Vereker 
that's  to  come.  Your  wife,  dear  fellow,  your  wife." 

The  way  the  young  man  flushed  up,  hesitated,  stammered, 
couldn't  organize  a  sane  word,  amused  Fenwick  intensely.  Of 
course  he  was,  so  to  speak,  quite  at  home — understood  the  posi- 
tion thoroughly.  But  he  wasn't  going  to  torment  the  doctor. 
He  was  only  making  it  impossible  for  him  to  avoid  confession, 
for  his  own  sake.  He  did  not  wait  for  the  stammering  to  take 
form,  but  continued: 

"I  mean  the  young  lady  you  told  Sally  about — the  young  lady 
you  are  hesitating  to  propose  to  because  there'll  be  what  you  call 
complications  in  medicine — complications  about  your  mamma, 
to  put  it  plainly.  ...  Oh  yes,  of  course,  Sally  told  me  all  about 
it  directly."  Vereker  cannot  resist  a  laugh,  for  all  his  embarrass- 
ment, a  laugh  which  somehow  had  the  image  of  Sally  in  it.  "She 
would,  you  know.  Sally's  the  sort  of  party  that — that,  if  she'd 
been  Greek,  would  have  been  the  daughter  of  an  Arcadian  shep- 
herdess and  a  thunderbolt." 

"Of  course  she  would.     I  say,  Fenwick,  look  here.  .  .  ." 

"Have  another  cigar,  old  man." 


436  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"No,  I've  smoked  enough.  That  one's  lasted  all  the  time  since 
we  came  out.  Look  here — what  I  want  to  say  is  ...  well,  that 
I  was  a  great  fool — did  wrong  in  fact — to  talk  to  Sally  about  that 
young  lady.  .  .  ." 

"And  to  that  young  lady  about  Sally,"  Fenwick  says  quietly. 
For  half  a  second — such  alacrity  has  thought — Vereker  takes  his 
meaning  wrong;  thinks  he  really  believes  in  the  other  young  lady. 
Then  it  flashes  on  him,  and  he  knows  how  his  companion  has 
been  seeing  through  him  all  the  while.  But  so  lovable  is  Fen- 
wick,  and  so  much  influence  is  there  in  the  repose  of  his  strength, 
that  there  is  no  resentment  on  Vereker's  part  that  he  should  be 
thus  seen  through.  He  surrenders  at  discretion. 

"I  see  you  know,"  he  says  helplessly. 

"Know  you  love  Sally? — of  course  I  do!  So  does  her  mother. 
So  does  yours,  for  that  matter.  So  does  every  one,  except  herself. 
Why,  even  you  yourself  know  it!  She  never  will  know  it  unless 
she  hears  it  on  the  best  authority — jour  own,  you  know." 

"Ought  I  to  tell  her?  I  know  I  was  all  wrong  about  that 
humbug-girl  I  cooked  up  to  tell  her  about.  I  altogether  lost  my 
head,  and  was  a  fool." 

"I  can't  see  what  end  you  proposed  to  yourself  by  doing  it," 
says  Fenwick  a  little  maliciously.  "If  Sally  had  recommended 
you  to  speak  up,  because  it  was  just  possible  the  young  lady 
might  be  pining  for  you  all  the  time,  you  couldn't  have  asked 
her  her  name,  and  then  said,  'That's  hers — you're  her!'  like  the 
fat  boy  in  'Pickwick.'  No! — I  consider,  my  dear  boy,  that  you 
didn't  do  yourself  any  good  by  that  ingenious  fiction.  You  know 
all  the  while  you  wouldn't  have  been  sorry  to  think  she  under- 
stood you." 

"I  don't  know  that  I  didn't  think  she  did.  I  really  don't  know 
what  I  did  or  didn't  think.  I  quite  lost  my  head  over  it,  that's 
the  truth." 

"Highly  proper.  Quite  consistent  with  human  experience! 
It's  the  sort  of  job  chaps  always  do  lose  their  heads  over.  The 
question  now  is,  What  are  we  going  to  do  next?"  Which  meant 
what  was  Vereker  going  to  do  next?  and  was  understood  by  his 
hearer  in  that  sense.  He  made  no  answer  at  the  moment,  and 
Fenwick  was  not  going  to  press  for  one. 

A  Newcastle  collier  had  come  in  to  deliver  her  cargo  some  days 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  437 

since,  before  the  wind  sprang  up,  and  the  coal-carts  had  been 
passing  and  repassing  across  the  sands  at  low  water;  for  there 
was  a  new  moon  somewhere  in  the  sky  when  she  came,  as  thin  as 
a  sickle,  clinging  tight  round  the  business  moon  that  saw  to  the 
spring-tides,  a  phantom  sphere  an  intrepid  star  was  daring  to 
go  close  to.  This  brig  had  not  been  disappointing  her  backers, 
for  wagers  had  been  freely  laid  that  she  would  drag  her  moorings 
in  the  wind,  and  drift.  Fenwick  and  Vereker  stopped  in  their 
walk  to  lean  on  the  wooden  rail  above  the  beach  that  skirted  the 
two  inclines,  going  either  way,  up  which  the  waggons  had  been 
a  couple  of  hours  ago  scrambling  over  the  shingle  against  time, 
to  land  one  more  load  yet  while  the  ebb  allowed  it.  They  could 
hear  the  yeo-yeo!  of  the  sail-hoisters  at  work  on  the  big  main- 
sail abaft,  and  wondered  how  on  earth  she  was  going  to  be  got 
clear  with  so  little  sea-way  and  the  wind  dead  in  shore.  But 
they  were  reassured  by  the  ancient  mariner  with  the  striped 
shirt,  whose  mission  in  life  seemed  to  be  to  stand  about  and 
enlighten  land-minds  about  sea-facts.  The  master  of  yander 
craft  had  doon  that  much  afower,  and  he'd  do  it  again.  Why, 
he'd  known  him  from  three  year  old,  the  striped  shirt  had! 
Which  settled  the  matter.  Then  presently  the  clink-clink  of  the 
windlass  dragging  at  the  anchor.  They  watched  her  in  silence 
till,  free  of  her  moorings,  any  one  could  have  sworn  she  would 
be  on  shore  to  a  certainty.  But  she  wasn't.  She  seemed  myste- 
riously to  be  able  to  manage  for  herself,  and  just  as  a  berth  for 
the  night  on  the  shingle  appeared  inevitable,  leaned  over  to  the 
wind  and  crept  away  from  the  land,  triumphant. 

Then,  the  show  being  over,  as  Fenwick  and  Vereker  turned  to 
look  the  lateness  of  the  hour  in  the  face,  and  get  home  to  bed, 
the  latter  answered  the  question  of  the  former,  as  though  he  had 
but  just  asked  it. 

"Speak  to  Sally.  I  shall  have  to."  And  then  added,  with 
an  awestruck  face  and  bated  breath:  "But  it's  awful!  A  moment 
after  he  was  laughing  at  himself,  as  he  said  to  his  companion, 
referring  to  a  very  palpable  fact,  "I  don't  wonder  I  made  you 
laugh  just  now." 

They  walked  on  without  much  said  till  they  came  to  Iggul- 
den's;  when  the  doctor,  seeing  no  light  in  the  sitting-room,  hoped 
his  worthy  mother  had  fulfilled  a  promise  made  when  they  caine 


438  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

away,  and  gone  to  bed.  It  was  then  past  eleven.  But  he  was 
reckoning  without  his  host. 

Fenwick  said  to  him,  as  they  stood  on  Iggulden's  threshold 
and  doormat  respectively — presuming  rashly,  on  imperfect  in- 
formation, to  delay  farewells — "Now  look  here,  Conrad,  my  dear 
boy  (I  like  your  name  Conrad),  don't  you  go  and  boil  over  to 
Sally  to-morrow,  nor  next  day.  You'll  only  spoil  the  rest  of 
your  stay,  maybe.  .  .  .  What!  well — what  I  mean  is  that  noth- 
ing I  say  prejudices  the  kitten.  You'll  understand  that,  I'm 
sure?" 

"Perfectly.  Of  course,  if  Sally  were  to  say  she  knew  some- 
body she  would  like  a  deal  better,  there's  no  reason  why  she 
shouldn't.  ...  I  mean  I  couldn't  complain." 

"Yes — yes!  I  see.  You'd  exonerate  her.  Good  boy!  Very 
proper."  And  indeed  the  doctor  had  felt,  as  the  words  passed 
his  lips,  that  he  was  rather  a  horrid  liar.  But  the  point  didn't 
matter.  Fenwick  laughed  it  off:  "Just  you  take  my  advice,  and 
refer  the  matter  to  the  kitten  the  last  day  you're  here.  Monday, 
won't  it  be?  And  don't  think  about  it!" 

"Oh  no!  I'm  a  philosophical  sort  of  chap,  I  am!  Never  in 
extremes.  Good-night!" 

"I  see.  Sperat  infestis  metuit  secundis  alteram  sortem  bene 
prceparatum  pectus — Horace."  Fenwick  ran  this  through  in  a 
breath;  and  the  doctor,  a  little  hazy  in  school-memories  of  the 
classics,  said,  "What's  that?"  and  began  translating  it — "The 
bosom  well  prepared  for  either  lot,  fears  .  .  ."  Fenwick  caught 
him  up  and  completed  the  sentence: 

"Fears  what  is  good,  and  hopes  for  what  is  not.  Cut  away 
to  bed,  old  chap,  and  sleep  sound.  .  .  ."  Then  he  paused  a 
moment,  as  he  saw  the  doctor  looking  a  question  at  him  intently, 
and  just  about  to  speak  it.  He  answered  it  before  it  came: 

"No,  no!  Nothing  more.  I  mean  to  forget  all  about  it,  and 
take  my  life  as  it  stands.  Bother  Mr.  Harrisson!"  He  dropped 
his  voice  to  say  this;  then  raised  it  again.  "Don't  you  fret 
about  me,  doctor.  Remember,  I'm  Algernon  Fenwick!  Good- 
night!" 

"Good-night!"  And  then  the  doctor,  with  the  remains  of 
heart-turmoil  in  him,  and  a  brain  reeling,  more  or  less,  went  up 
into  what  he  conceived  to  be  an  empty  dark  room,  and  was  dis- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  439 

concerted  by  an  ill-used  murmur  in  the  darkness — a  meek,  sub- 
missive voice  of  one  accustomed  to  slights: 

"I  told  her  to  blow  it  out  and  go  to  bed.  It  is  all — quite — 
right,  my  dear.  So  do  not  complain.  Now  help  me  with  my 
things,  and  I  will  get  to  bed." 

"My  dear  mother!  I  am  so  sorry.  I  had  no  idea  you  had  not 
gone  long  ago!" 

"My  dear! — it  does  not  matter  in  the  least  now.  What  is 
done,  is  done.  Be  careful  with  the  grease  over  my  work.  These 
candles  drop  dreadfully,  unless  you  hold  them  exactly  upright. 
And  gutter.  Now  give  me  your  arm,  and  I  will  go  to  bed.  I 
think  I  shall  sleep."  And  the  worthy  woman  was  really — if  her 
son  could  only  have  got  his  eyes  freed  from  the  scales  of  domestic 
superstition,  and  seen  it — intensely  happy  and  exultant  at  this 
fiendish  little  piece  of  discomfort-mongering.  She  had  scored; 
there  was  no  doubt  of  it.  She  was  even  turning  it  over  in  her 
own  mind  whether  it  would  not  bear  repetition  at  a  future  time; 
and  quite  intended,  if  so,  to  enjoy  herself  over  it.  Now  the 
doctor  was  contrite  and  heavy  at  heart  at  his  cruel  conduct; 
walking  about — just  think! — and  talking  over  his  own  affairs 
while  his  self-sacrificing  mother  was  sitting  in  the  dark,  with  the 
lamp  out!  To  be  sure  there  was  no  visible  reason  why  she  should 
have  had  it  put  out,  except  as  a  picturesque  and  imaginative 
way  of  rubbing  her  altruism  into  its  nearest  victim.  Unless, 
indeed,  it  was  done  in  order  that  the  darkened  window  should 
seem  to  announce  to  the  returning  truant  that  she  had  gone  to 
bed,  and  to  lull  his  mind  to  unconsciousness  of  the  ambush  that 
awaited  him. 

Anyhow,  the  doctor  was  so  impressed  with  his  own  delinquency 
that  he  felt  it  would  be  impossible,  the  lamp  having  been  put  out, 
to  take  his  mother  into  his  confidence  about  his  conversation 
with  Fenwick.  Which  he  certainly  would  have  done — late  as 
the  hour  was — if  it  had  been  left  in.  So  he  said  good-night,  and 
carried  the  chaos  of  his  emotions  away  to  bed  with  him,  and  lay 
awake  with  them  till  cock-crow. 

As  Fenwick  walked  back  home,  timing  his  pace  by  his  expecta- 
tion of  his  cigar's  duration,  he  wondered  whether,  perhaps,  he 
had  not  been  a  little  rash.  He  felt  obliged  to  go  back  on  inter- 


440  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

views  with  Sally,  in  which  the  doctor  had  been  spoken  of.  He 
recalled  for  his  justification  one  in  particular.  The  family  con- 
clave at  Krakatoa  Villa  had  recurred  to  a  remark  of  Rosalind's 
about  the  drawback  to  Vereker's  practice  of  his  bachelorhood. 
He  was  then,  as  it  were,  brought  up  for  a  second  reading,  and 
new  clauses  added  to  him  containing  schedules  of  possible  wives. 
Fenwick  had  noticed,  then,  that  Sally's  assent  to  the  insertion 
of  any  candidate's  name  turned  on  two  points:  one,  the  lady's 
consent  being  taken  for  granted;  the  other,  that  every  young 
single  female  human  creature  known  by  name  or  describable  by 
language  was  actually  out  of  the  question,  or  inadmissible  in  its 
answer.  She  rejected  almost  all  applicants  for  the  post  of  a 
doctor's  wife  without  examining  their  claims,  on  the  ground  of 
moral  or  physical  defect — as,  for  instance,  you  never  would  go 
and  tie  up  poor  Prosy  to  a  wife  that  golloped.  Sylvia  Peplow, 
indeed!  Interrogated  about  the  nature  of  "golloping,"  Sally 
could  go  no  nearer  than  that  Miss  Peplow  looked  as  if  she  couldn't 
help  it.  And  her  sister  was  worse:  she  was  perfectly  pecky,  and 
shut  up  with  a  click.  And  as  for  the  large  Miss  Baker — why, 
you  knew  how  large  she  was,  and  it  would  be  quite  ridiculous! 
Besides,  her  stupidity! 

The  only  candidates  that  got  the  least  consideration  owed  their 
success  to  their  names  or  expectations.  Caroline  Smith  had,  or 
would  have  sometime,  a  thousand  a  year.  But  she  squinted. 
Still,  she  might  be  thought  over.  Mrs.  Pollicitus  Biggs's  cousin 
Isabella  would  have  two  thousand  when  her  mother  died,  but  the 
vitality  of  the  latter  was  indescribable.  Besides,  she  was  just 
like  her  name,  Isabella,  and  did  her  hair  religiously.  There  was 
Chariclea  Epimenides,  certainly,  who  had  got  three  thousand,  and 
would  have  six  more.  She  might  be  worth  thinking  of.  ... 

"Why  don't  you  have  him  yourself,  Sarah?"  Fenwick  had 
asked  at  this  point.  Rosalind  had  just  left  the  room  to  speak  to 
Ann.  But  he  didn't  want  Sarah  to  be  obliged  to  answer,  so  he 
went  on:  "Why  are  all  these  young  ladies'  incomes  exactly  in 
round  thousands?" 

To  which  Sally  had  replied:  "They  always  are,  when  you 
haven't  got  'em."  But  had  fallen  into  contemplation,  and 
presently  said — out  of  the  blue — "Because  I'm  an  unsettled  sort 
of  party — a  vagrant.  I  shouldn't  do  for  a  G.P.'s  wife,  thank 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  441 

you,  Jeremiah!  I  should  like  to  live  in  a  caravan,  and  go  about 
the  country,  and  wood  fires  out  of  doors."  Was  it,  Fenwick 
wondered,  the  gipsies  they  had  seen  to-day  that  had  made  her 
think  of  this?  and  then  he  recalled  how  he  afterwards  heard  the 
kitten  singing  to  herself  the  old  ballad: 

"  What  care  I  for  my  goose-feather  bed  ? 
What  care  I  for  my  money  oh  ?  " 

and  hearing  her  so  sing  had  somehow  imputed  to  the  parade  of 
bravado  in  the  swing  of  its  rhythm  a  something  that  might  have 
belonged  to  a  touched  chord.  Like  enough  a  mistake  of  his,  said 
Reason.  But  for  all  that  the  reminiscence  played  its  part  in 
soothing  Fenwick's  misgivings  of  his  own  rashness. 

"The  kitten's  all  right,"  said  he  to  himself.  "And  if  she 
doesn't  want  Master  Conrad,  the  sooner  he  knows  it  the  better!" 
But  he  had  little  doubt  of  the  course  things  would  take  as  he 
stopped  to  look  at  that  venturesome  star,  that  seemed  to  be  going 
altogether  too  near  the  moon  for  safety. 

In  a  few  moments  he  turned  again  towards  home.  And  then 
his  mind  must  needs  go  off  to  the  thing  of  all  others  he  wished 
not  to  think  of — himself.  He  had  come  to  see  this  much  clearly, 
that  until  the  veil  floated  away  from  between  him  and  his  past 
and  left  the  whole  atmosphere  transparent,  there  could  be  no 
certainty  that  a  recrudescence  of  that  past  would  not  be  fatal  to 
his  wife's  happiness.  And  inevitably,  therefore,  to  his  own. 
Having  once  formulated  the  idea  that  for  the  future  he  was  to 
be  one  person  and  Harrisson  another,  he  found  its  entertainment 
in  practice  easier  than  he  had  anticipated.  He  had  only  to  say 
to  himself  that  it  was  for  her  sake  that  he  did  it,  and  he  did  not 
find  it  altogether  impossible  to  dismiss  his  own  identity  from 
the  phantasmagoria  that  kept  on  coming  back  and  back  before 
his  mind,  and  to  assign  the  whole  drama  to  another  person;  to 
whom  he  allowed  the  name  of  Harrisson  all  the  easier  from  his 
knowledge  that  it  never  had  been  really  his  own.  Very  much 
the  easier,  too,  no  doubt,  from  the  sense  that  the  function  of 
memory  was  still  diseased,  imperfect,  untrustworthy.  How 
could  it  be  otherwise  when  he  still  was  unable  to  force  it  back 
beyond  a  certain  limit?  It  was  mainly  a  vision  of  America,  and, 
previous  to  that,  a  mystery  of  interminable  avenues  of  trees,  and 


442  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

an  inexplicable  horror  of  a  struggle  with  death.  There  he 
always  lost  himself.  In  the  hinterland  of  this  there  was  that 
vision  of  a  wedding  somewhere.  And  then  bewilderment,  be- 
cause the  image  of  his  living  wife,  his  very  soul  of  the  world 
he  now  dwelt  in,  the  woman  whose  daughter  had  grown  into  his 
heart  as  his  own — yes,  not  only  the  image,  but  the  very  name  of 
her — had  come  in  and  supplanted  that  of  the  forgotten  wife  of 
that  forgotten  day.  So  much  so  that  more  than  once,  in  striving 
to  follow  the  clue  given  by  that  railway-carriage,  his  mind  had 
involuntarily  called  the  warm  living  thing  that  came  into  his 
arms  from  it  "Rosey."  In  the  face  of  that,  what  was  the  worth 
of  anything  he  should  recollect  now,  that  he  should  not  discard  it 
as  a  mere  phantasm,  for  her  sake?  How  almost  easy  to  say  to 
himself,  "that  was  Harrisson,"  and  then  to  add,  "whoever  he 
was,"  and  dismiss  him. 

Do  you — you  who  read — find  this  so  very  difficult  to  under- 
stand? Can  you  recall  no  like  imperfect  memory  of  your  own 
that,  multiplied  a  hundredfold,  would  supply  an  analogy,  a  stand- 
point to  look  into  Fenwick's  disordered  mind  from? 

After  his  delirious  collision  with  his  first  vigorous  revival  of 
the  past,  he  was  beginning  to  settle  down  to  face  it,  helped  by 
the  talisman  of  his  love  for  Rosalind,  whom  it  was  his  first  duty 
to  shield  from  whatever  it  should  prove  to  hold  of  possible  injury 
to  her.  That  happy  hour  of  the  dying  sunset  in  the  shorn  corn- 
fields, with  her  and  Sally  and  the  sky  above  and  the  sea  beyond, 
had  gone  far  to  soothe  the  perturbation  of  the  night.  And  his 
talk  of  the  morning  with  this  young  man  he  had  just  left  had 
helped  him  strongly.  For  he  knew  in  his  heart  he  could  safely 
go  to  him  again  if  he  could  not  bear  his  own  silence,  could  trust 
him  with  whatever  he  could  tell  at  all  to  any  one.  Could  he  not, 
when  he  was  actually  ready  to  trust  him  with — Sally? 

So,  though  he  was  far  from  feeling  at  rest,  a  working  equilib- 
rium was  in  sight.  He  could  acquiesce  in  what  came  back  to 
him,  as  it  came;  need  never  struggle  to  hasten  or  retard  it. 
Little  things  would  float  into  his  mind,  like  house-flies  into  the 
ray  from  a  shutter-crack  in  a  darkened  room,  and  float  away 
again  uncaptured,  or  whizz  and  burr  round  and  against  each  other 
as  the  flies  do,  and  then  decide — as  the  flies  do — that  neither 
concerns  the  other  and  each  may  go  his  way.  But  he  was  nowise 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  443 

bound  to  catch  these  things  on  the  wing,  or  persuade  them  to 
live  in  peace  with  one  another.  If  they  came,  they  came;  and  if 
they  went,  they  went. 

Such  a  one  caught  his  thoughts,  and  held  them  for  a  moment 
as,  satisfied  that  astronomy  would  see  to  that  star,  he  turned 
to  go  straight  home  to  Lobjoit's.  That  would  just  last  out  the 
cigar.  But  what  was  it  now?  What  was  the  fly  that  flew  into 
his  sun-ray  this  time,  that  it  should  make  him  remember  a  line 
of  Horace,  to  be  so  pat  with  it,  and  to  know  what  it  meant,  too? 

But  this  fact,  that  he  could  not  tell  how  he  came  to  know  its 
meaning,  showed  him  how  decisively  the  barrier  line  across  the 
memory  of  his  boyhood  was  drawn,  or,  it  might  be,  his  early 
manhood.  He  could  not  remember,  properly  speaking,  the  whole 
of  his  life  in  the  States,  but  he  could  remember  telling  a  man — 
one  Larpent,  a  man  with  a  club-foot,  at  Ontario — that  he  had 
been  there  over  fifteen  years.  This  man  has  nothing  to  do  with 
this  story,  but  he  happens  to  serve  as  an  illustration  of  the  dis- 
jointed way  in  which  small  details  would  tell  out  clear  against  a 
background  of  confusion.  Why,  Fenwick  could  remember  his 
face  plainly — how  close-shaven  he  was,  and  black  over  the  razor- 
land;  how  his  dentist  had  inserted  an  artificial  tooth  that  didn't 
match,  and  shone  out  white.  But  as  to  the  fifteen  years  he  had 
spent  in  the  States,  that  he  had  told  Mr.  Larpent  of,  they  grew 
dimmer  and  dimmer  as  he  tried  to  carry  his  recollection  further 
back.  Beyond  them — or  rather,  longer  ago  than  they,  properly 
speaking — came  that  endless,  intolerable  labyrinth  of  trees,  and 
then,  earlier  still,  that  railway-carriage.  It  was  getting  clearer; 
but  the  worst  of  it  was  that  the  clearer  it  got,  the  clearer  grew  the 
Rosey  that  came  out  of  it.  As  long  as  that  went  on,  there  was 
nothing  of  it  all  he  could  place  faith  in.  He  had  been  told  that 
no  man  could  be  convinced,  by  his  own  reason,  of  his  own  hallu- 
cination. He  would  supply  a  case  to  the  contrary.  It  would 
amuse  him  one  day,  if  ever  he  came  to  know  that  girl  of  the 
railway-carriage  was  dead,  to  tell  Rosalind  all  his  experiences, 
and  how  bravely  he  fought  against  what  he  knew  to  be  delusion. 

But  he  must  make  an  effort  against  this  sort  of  thing.  Here 
was  he,  who  had  just  made  up  his  mind — so  he  phrased  it — to 
remain  himself,  and  refuse  to  be  Harrisson,  no  sooner  was  he 
left  alone  for  a  few  minutes  than  he  must  needs  be  raking  up 


444  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

the  past.  And  that,  too,  because  of  a  line  of  Horace! — sound 
in  itself,  but  quite  cut  asunder  from  its  origin,  the  book  he  read  it 
in,  or  the  voice  he  heard  read  it.  What  did  that  line  matter? 
Leave  it  for  Mr.  Harrisson  in  that  state  of  pre-existence.  As 
well  make  a  point  of  recalling  the  provenance  of  any  little  thing 
that  had  happened  in  this  his  present  life.  Well,  for  instance, 
Mary  and  the  fat  boy  in  "Pickwick."  Kosalind  had  read  him 
that  aloud,  he  knew,  but  he  couldn't  say  when.  Was  he  going 
to  worry  himself  to  recall  that  which  could  do  him  no  harm  to 
know?  Surely  not.  And  if  so,  why  strive  to  bring  back  things 
better  forgotten?  It  is  useless  to  endeavour  to  make  the  state  of 
Fen  wick's  mind,  at  this  point  of  the  imperfect  revival  of  memory, 
appear  other  than  incredible.  A  person  who  has  had  the  pain- 
ful experience  of  forgetting  his  own  name  in  a  .dream  would  per- 
haps understand  it  best.  Or,  without  going  so  far,  can  no  help 
be  got  towards  it  from  our  frequent  certainties  about  some  phrase 
(for  instance)  that  we  think  we  cannot  possibly  forget?  about 
some  date  that  we  believe  no  human  power  will  ever  obliterate? 
And  in  five  minutes — gone — utterly  gone!  Truly,  there  is  no 
evidence  but  a  man's  own  word  for  what  he  does  or  does  not,  can 
or  cannot,  recollect. 

<CL  say,  Eosey,  when  was  it  you  read  to  me  about  Mary  and 
the  fat  boy  in  Tickwick'?"  Fenwick,  having  suggested  a  doubt 
to  himself  about  his  power  to  recall  what  he  supposed  to  have 
happened  recently,  had,  of  course,  set  about  doing  it  directly. 
His  question  was  asked  of  his  wife  as  he  came  into  her  bedroom 
on  his  return.  He  mounted  the  stairs  singing  to  himself, 

"  Que  nous  mangerons  Marott-e, 
Bec-&-bec  et  toi  et  moi," 

till  he  came  in  to  where  Rosalind  was  sitting  reading,  with  her 
wonderful  hair  combed  free — probably  by  Sally  for  a  treat.  Then 
he  asked  his  question  rather  suddenly,  and  it  made  her  start. 

"I  was  in  the  middle  of  my  book,  and  you  made  me  jump." 
He  gave  her  a  kiss  for  apology.  "What's  the  question?  When 
did  I  read  to  you  about  Mary  and  the  fat  boy?  I  couldn't  say. 
I  feel  as  if  I  had,  though." 

"Was  it  out  in  the  garden  at  K.  Villa?  It  wasn't  here."  He 
usually  called  Krakatoa  "K."  for  working  purposes. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  445 

"No,  it  certainly  wasn't  here.  It  must  have  been  at  home,  only 
I  can't  recollect  when.  Ask  Sally." 

"The  kitten  wasn't  there." 

"She  would  know,  though.  She  always  knows.  She's  not 
asleep  yet.  .  .  .  Sallykin!"  The  young  person  is  on  the  other 
side  of  a  mere  wooden  partition,  congenial  to  the  architecture  of 
Lobjoit's,  and  her  reply  conveys  the  idea  of  a  speaker  in  bed  who 
hasn't  moved  to  answer. 

"What?    Be  quick.     I'm  going  to  sleep." 

"I'm  so  sorry,  chick.  When  was  it  I  read  to  this  man  Mary 
and  the  fat  boy  in  Tickwick'?" 

"How  should  I  know?    Not  when  I  was  there." 

"All  right,  Sarah."     Thus  Fen  wick,  to  whom  Sarah  responds: 

"Good-night,  Jeremiah.  Go  to  bed,  and  don't  keep  decent 
Christian  people  awake  at  this  hour  of  the  night.  Take  mother's 
book  away,  and  cut  it." 

Rosalind  closes  her  book  and  says:  "7  don't  know,  darling,  if 
Sally  doesn't.  Why  do  you  want  to  know?" 

"Couldn't  say.  It  crossed  my  mind.  I  know  the  kitten  wasn't 
there,  though.  Good-night,  love.  ...  Oh  yes,  I  shall  sleep  to- 
night. Ta,  ta,  Sarah — pleasant  dreams!" 

But  he  had  not  reached  the  door  when  the  voice  of  Sarah  came 
again,  with  the  implication  of  a  mouth  that  had  come  out  into 
the  open. 

"Stop,  Jeremiah!"  it  said.     "It  wasn't  at  K.  Villa." 

"Why  not,  chick?" 

"Because  Pickwick's  lost!  It  was  lent  to  those  impossible  peo- 
ple at  Turnham  Green,  and  they  stole  it.  I  know  they  did. 
Name  like  Marylebone." 

"The  Haliburtons?  Why,  that's  ever  so  long  ago."  Thus 
Rosalind. 

"Of  course  it  is.  It's  been  gone  ages.  I'm  going  to  sleep. 
Good-night!"  And  Jeremiah  said  good-night  once  more  and 
departed. 

Sally  didn't  go  straight  to  sleep,  but  she  made  a  start  on  her 
way  there.  It  was  not  a  vigorous  start,  for  she  had  hardly  begun 
upon  it  when  she  desisted,  and  sat  up  in  bed  and  listened. 

"What's  that,  mother?    Nothing  wrong,  is  there?" 

"No,  darling  child,  what  should  be  wrong?    Go  to  sleep." 


446  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"I  thought  I  heard  you  gasp,  or  snuffle,  or  sigh,  or  sob,  or  click 
in  your  throat.  That's  all.  Sure  you  didn't?" 

"Quite  sure.  Now,  do  be  a  reasonable  kitten,  and  go  to  sleep; 
I  shall  be  in  bed  in  half-a-second." 

And  Sally  subsides,  but  first  makes  a  stipulation:  "You  will 
sleep  in  your  hair,  mother  darling,  won't  you?  Or,  at  least,  do 
it  up,  and  not  that  hateful  nightcap?" 

But  though  Rosalind  felt  conscientiously  able  to  disclaim  any 
of  the  sounds  Sally  had  described,  something  audible  had  oc- 
curred in  her  breathing.  Sally's  first  word  had  gone  nearest,  but 
it  was  hardly  a  full-grown  gasp. 

Her  husband's  question  about  "Pickwick"  had  scarcely  taken 
her  attention  off  an  exciting  story-climax,  and  she  really  did 
want  to  know  why  the  Archbishop  turned  pale  as  death  when  the 
Countess  kissed  him.  Gerry  was  looking  well  and  cheerful  again, 
and  there  was  nothing  to  connect  his  inquiry  with  any  reminis- 
cence of  "B.C."  So,  as  soon  as  he  had  gone,  she  reopened  her 
book — not  without  a  mental  allusion  to  a  dog  in  Proverbs — and 
went  on  where  she  had  left  off.  The  writer  had  not  known  how 
to  manage  his  Archbishop  and  Countess,  and  the  story  went  flat 
and  slushy  like  an  ill-whipped  zabajone.  She  put  the  book  aside, 
and  wondered  whether  "Pickwick"  really  had  been  alienated  by 
the  impossible  Haliburtons;  sat  thinking,  but  only  of  the  thing 
of  now — nothing  of  buried  records. 

So  she  sat,  it  might  be  for  two  minutes.  Then,  quite  suddenly, 
she  had  bitten  her  lip  and  her  brows  had  wrinkled.  And  her 
eyes  had  locked  to  a  fixed  look  that  would  stay  till  she  had 
thought  this  out.  So  her  face  said,  and  the  stillness  of  her  hand. 

For  she  had  suddenly  remembered  when  and  where  it  was  she 
had  read  to  that  man  about  Mary  and  the  fat  boy.  It  was  in 
the  garden  at  her  mother's  twenty-two  years  ago.  She  remem- 
bered it  well  now,  and  quite  suddenly.  She  could  remember  how 
Gerry,  young-man-wise,  had  tried  to  utilise  Thackeray  to  show 
his  greater  knowledge  of  the  world — had  flaunted  Piccadilly  and 
Pall  Mall  before  the  dazzled  eyes  of  an  astonished  suburban. 
She  could  remember  how  she  read  it  aloud  to  him,  because,  when 
he  read  over  her  shoulder,  she  always  turned  the  page  before  he 
was  ready.  And  his  decision  that  Dickens's  characters  were  never 
gentlemen,  and  her  saying  perhaps  that  was  why  he  was  so 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  447 

amusing.  And  then  how  he  got  the  book  from  her  and  went  on 
reading  while  she  went  away  for  her  lawn-tennis  shoes,  and  when 
she  came  back  found  he  had  only  two  more  pages  to  read,  and 
then  he  would  come  and  play. 

But  it  spoke  well  for  her  husband's  chances  of  a  quiet  time 
to-night  that  he  should  hold  this  memory  in  his  mind,  and  yet 
be  secure  against  a  complete  resurrection  of  the  past.  Nothing 
else  might  grow  from  it.  He  evidently  thought  the  reading  had 
been  at  Shepherd's  Bush.  He  would  hardly  have  said,  "the 
kitten  wasn't  there,"  unless  his  ideas  had  been  glued  to  that  spot. 
But  then — and  Eosalind's  mind  swam  to  think  of  it — how  very 
decisively  the  kitten  was  "not  there"  in  that  other  garden  two- 
and-twenty  years  ago. 

It  was  at  that  moment  the  gasp,  or  sigh,  or  sob,  or  whatever 
it  was,  awoke  Sally.  Her  mother  had  been  strong  against  the 
mere  memory  of  the  happy  hour  of  thoughtless  long  ago;  but 
then,  this  that  was  to  come — this  thing  the  time  was  thoughtless 
of!  Was  it  not  enough  to  force  a  gasp  from  self-control  itself? 
a  cry  from  any  creature  claiming  to  be  human?  "The  kitten 
wasn't  there!"  No,  truly  she  was  not. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

HOW  MEMORY  CREPT  BACK  AND  BACK,  AND  FEN  WICK  KEPT  HIS  OWN 
COUNSEL.  ROSALIND  NEED  NEVER  KNOW  IT.  OF  A  JOLLY  BIG  BLOB 
OF  MELTED  CANDLE,  AND  SALLY'S  HALF-BROTHER.  OF  FENWICK's 
IMPROVED  GOOD  SPIRITS 

THAT  was  a  day  of  many  little  incidents,  and  a  fine  day  into 
the  bargain.  Perhaps  the  next  day  was  helped  to  be  a  flat  day  by 
the  barometer,  which  had  shown  its  usual  untrustworthiness  and 
gone  down.  The  wind's  grievance — very  perceptible  to  the  lee- 
ward of  keyholes  and  window-cracks — may  have  been  against 
this  instability.  It  had  been  looking  forward  to  a  day's  rest, 
and  here  this  meteorology  must  needs  be  fussing.  Neptune  on 
the  contrary  was  all  the  fresher  for  his  half-holiday,  and  was 
trotting  out  tiny  white  ponies  all  over  his  fields,  who  played  bo- 
peep  with  each  other  in  and  out  of  the  valleys  of  the  plough-land. 
But  they  were  grey  valleys  now,  that  yesterday  were  smiling  in 
the  sun.  And  the  sky  was  a  mere  self-coloured  sky  (a  modern 
expression,  as  unconvincing  as  most  of  its  congeners),  and  wanted 
to  make  everything  else  as  grey  as  itself.  Also  there  came  drifts 
of  fine  rain  that  wetted  you  through,  and  your  umbrella  wasn't 
any  good.  So  a  great  many  of  the  visitors  to  St.  Sennans 
thought  they  would  stop  at  home  and  get  those  letters  written. 

Sally  wouldn't  admit  that  the  day  was  flat  per  se,  but  only  that 
it  had  become  so  owing  to  the  departure  of  Laetitia  and  her 
husband.  She  reviewed  the  latter  a  good  deal,  as  one  who  had 
recently  been  well  under  inspection  and  had  stood  the  test.  He 
was  really  a  very  nice  fellow,  haberdasher  or  no,  wasn't  he, 
mother?  To  which  Rosalind  replied  that  he  was  a  very  nice 
fellow  indeed,  only  so  quiet.  If  he  had  had  his  violin  with  him, 
he  would  have  been  much  more  perceptible.  But  she  supposed 
it  was  best  to  travel  with  it  as  little  as  possible.  For  it  had  been 
decided,  all  things  considered,  that  the  precious  Strad  should  be 
left  locked  up  at  home.  "It's  got  an  insurance  policy  all  to  it- 

448 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  449 

self,"  said  Sally,  "for  three  hundred  pounds."  She  was  quite 
awestruck  by  the  three  hundred  golden  sovereigns  which  these 
pounds  would  have  been  if  they  had  had  an  existence  of  their  own 
off  paper. 

"You  ought  to  have  an  insurance  policy  all  to  yourself,  Sarah," 
said  Fenwick.  "Only  I  don't  believe  any  office  would  accept 
you.  Fancy  your  swimming  out  like  that  yesterday!  How  far 
did  you  go?" 

"Round  the  buoy  and  aback  again.  I  say,  Jeremiah,  if  ever  I 
get  drowned,  mind  you  rush  to  the  bathing-machine  and  see  if 
there's  a  copy  of  'Ally  Sloper'  or  'Tit-Bits'.  Because  there'd  be 
fifty  pounds  for  each.  Think  of  that!"  Sally  is  delighted  with 
these  sums,  too,  to  the  extent  of  quite  losing  sight  of  the  sacrifice 
necessary  for  their  acquisition. 

"Two  whole  fifties!"  Fenwick  says,  adding  after  consideration: 
"I  think  we  had  sooner  keep  our  daughter,  eh,  Rosey?"  And 
Rosalind  agreed.  Only  she  really  was  a  shocking  madcap,  the 
kitten! 

Had  same  flavour  of  Fenwick's  mental  history  got  in  the  air, 
that  Sally,  presumably  with  no  direct  information  about  its  last 
chapter,  should  say  to  him  suddenly:  "It  is  such  a  puzzle  to 
me,  Jeremiah,  that  you've  never  recollected  the  railway-carriage"? 
He  was  saved  from  telling  fibs  in  reply — for  he  had  recollected 
the1  railway-carriage,  and  left  it,  as  it  were,  for  Mr.  Harrisson — 
by  Sally  continuing:  "When  you  were  Mr.  Fenwick,  and  I  wasn't 
at  liberty  to  kiss  you."  She  did  so  to  illustrate. 

"I  don't  see  how  I  could  reasonably  have  resented  your  kissing 
me,  Sarah.  And  I'm  Mr.  Fenwick  now." 

"On  the  contrary,  you're  Jeremiah.  But  if  you  were  he  ever 
so,  I'm  puzzled  why  Mr.  Fenwick  now  can't  remember  Mr.  Fen- 
wick then." 

"He  can't,  Sarah  dear.  He  can  no  more  remember  Mr.  Fen- 
wick then  than  if  no  such  person  had  ever  existed."  It  was  a 
clever  equivocation,  for  though  he  had  so  far  made  nothing  of 
the  name  on  his  arm,  he  was  quite  clear  he  came  back  to 
England  Harrisson.  His  gravity  and  sadness  as  he  said  it  may 
have  been  not  so  much  duplicity  as  a  reflection  from  his  turgid 
current  of  thought  of  the  last  two  days.  It  imposed  on  Sally, 
who  decided  in  her  own  mind  on  changing  the  topic  as  soon  as 


450  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

she  could  do  it  without  a  jerk.  Meanwhile,  a  stepping-stone  was 
available — extravagant  treatment  of  the  subject  with  a  view  to 
help  from  laughter. 

"I  wonder  what  Mr.  Fenwick  then  would  have  thought  if  I 
had  kissed  him  in  the  railway-carriage." 

"He'd  have  thought  you  must  be  Sally,  only  he  hadn't  noticed 
it.  He  wouldn't  have  made  a  rumpus  on  high  moral  grounds, 
I'm  sure.  But  I  don't  know  about  the  old  cock  that  talked  about 
the  terms  of  the  Company's  charter.  .  .  ." 

"Hullo!"  Sally  interrupts  him  blankly.  He  had  better  have 
let  it  alone.  But  it  wouldn't  do  to  admit  anything. 

"What's  'hullo/  Sarah?" 

"See  how  you're  recollecting  things!  Jeremiah's  recollecting 
the  railway-carriage,  mother — the  electrocution-carriage." 

"Are  you,  darling?"  Rosalind,  coming  behind  his  chair,  puts 
her  hands  round  his  neck.  "What  have  you  recollected  ?" 

"I  don't  think  I've  recollected  anything  the  kitten  hasn't  told 
me,"  says  Fenwick  dreamily.  But  Sally  is  positive  she  never 
told  him  anything  about  the  terms  of  the  Company's  charter. 

Rosalind  adheres  to  her  policy  of  keeping  Sally  out  of  it  as 
much  as  possible.  In  this  case  a  very  small  fib  indeed  serves  the 
purpose:  "You  must  have  told  him,  chick;  or  perhaps  I  repeated 
it.  I  remember  your  telling  me  about  the  elderly  gentleman 
who  was  in  a  rage  with  the  Company."  Sally  looked  doubtful, 
but  gave  up  the  point. 

Nevertheless,  Fenwick  felt  certain  in  his  own  heart  that  "the 
terms  of  the  Company's  charter"  was  a  bit  of  private  recollection 
of  his  own.  And  Rosalind  had  never  heard  of  it  before.  But  it 
was  true  she  had  heard  of  the  elderly  gentleman.  Near  enough! 

As  to  the  crowd  of  memories  that  kept  coming,  some  absolutely 
clear,  some  mere  phantoms,  into  the  arena  of  Fenwick's  still  dis- 
ordered mind,  they  would  have  an  interest,  and  a  strong  one, 
for  this  story  if  its  object  were  the  examination  of  strange  freaks 
of  memory.  But  the  only  point  we  are  nearly  concerned  with  is 
the  rigid  barrier  drawn  across  the  backward  pathway  of  his  recol- 
lection at  some  period  between  ten  and  fifteen  years  ago.  Till 
this  should  be  removed,  and  the  dim  image  of  his  forgotten  mar- 
riage should  acquire  force  and  cohesion,  he  and  his  wife  were 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  451 

safe  from  the  intrusion  of  their  former  selves  on  the  scene  of  their 
present  happiness — safe  possibly  from  a  power  of  interference 
it  might  exercise  for  ill — safe  certainly  from  risk  of  a  revelation 
to  Sally  of  her  mother's  history  and  her  own  parentage — but  safe 
at  a  heavy  cost  to  the  one  of  the  three  who  alone  now  held  the 
key  to  their  disclosure. 

However  vividly  Fenwick  had  recalled  the  incidents  of  his 
arrival  in  England,  and  however  convinced  he  was  that  no  part 
of  them  was  mere  dream,  they  all  belonged  for  him  to  that  buried 
Harrisson  whose  identity  he  shrank  from  taking  on  himself — 
would  have  shrunk  from,  at  the  cost  that  was  to  be  paid  for  it, 
had  the  prize  of  its  inheritance  been  ten  times  as  great  Still, 
one  or  two  connecting  links  had  caught  on  either  side,  the  chief 
one  being  Sally,  who  had  actually  spoken  with  him  whilst  still 
Harrisson — although  it  must  be  admitted  she  had  not  kissed 
him — and  the  one  next  in  importance,  the  cabman.  The  pawn- 
broker made  a  very  bad  third — in  fact,  scarcely  counted,  owing 
to  his  own  moroseness  or  reserve.  But  the  cabman!  Why,  Fen- 
wick  had  it  all  now  at  his  fingers'  ends.  He  could  recall  the 
start  from  New  York,  the  wish  to  keep  the  secret  of  his  gold- 
mining  success  to  himself  on  the  ship,  and  his  satisfaction  when 
he  found  his  name  printed  with  one  s  in  the  list  of  cabin  pas- 
sengers. Then  a  pleasant  voyage  on  a  summer  Atlantic,  and 
that  nice  young  American  couple  whose  acquaintance  he  made 
before  they  passed  Sandy  Hook,  every  penny  of  whose  cash  had 
been  stolen  on  board,  and  how  he  had  financed  them,  careless  of 
his  own  ready  cash.  And  how  then,  not  being  sure  if  he  should 
go  to  London  or  to  Manchester,  he  decided  on  the  former,  and 
wired  his  New  York  banker  to  send  him  credit,  prompt,  at  the 
bank  he  named  in  London;  and  then  Livermore's  Rents,  1808, 
and  the  joy  of  the  cabman;  and  then  the  Twopenny  Tube;  and 
then  Sally.  He  tried  what  he  could  towards  putting  in  order 
what  followed,  but  could  determine  nothing  except  that  he 
stooped  for  the  half-crown,  and  something  struck  him  a  heavy 
blow.  Thereupon  he  was  immediately  a  person,  or  a  confusion, 
sitting  alone  in  a  cab,  to  whom  a  lady  came  whom  he  thought  he 
knew,  and  to  this  lady  he  wanted  to  say,  "Is  that  you?"  for  no 
reason  he  could  now  trace,  but  found  he  could  scarcely  articulate. 

Recalling  everything  thus,  to  the  full,  he  was  able  to  supply 


452  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

links  in  the  story  that  we  have  found  no  place  for  so  far.  For 
instance,  the  loss  of  a  small  valise  on  the  boat  that  contained 
credentials  that  would  have  made  it  quite  unnecessary  for  him 
to  cable  to  New  York  for  credit,  and  also  an  incident  this  re- 
minded him  of — that  he  had  not  only  parted  with  most  of  his 
cash  to  the  young  Americans,  but  had  given  his  purse  to  the 
lady  to  keep  her  share  of  it  in,  saying  he  had  a  very  good  cash 
pocket,  and  would  have  plenty  of  time  to  buy  another,  whereas 
they  were  hurrying  through  to  catch  the  tidal  boat  for  Calais. 
This  accounted  for  that  little  new  pocket-book  without  a  card 
in  it  that  had  given  no  information  at  all.  He  could  remember 
having  made  so  free  with  his  cards  on  the  boat  and  in  the  train 
that  he  had  only  one  left  when  he  got  to  Euston. 

He  found  himself,  as  the  hours  passed,  better  and  better  able 
to  dream  and  speculate  about  the  life  he  now  chose  to  imagine 
was  Harrisson's  property,  not  his;  and  the  more  so  the  more 
he  felt  the  force  of  the  barrier  drawn  across  the  earlier  part  of 
it.  Had  the  barrier  remained  intact,  he  might  ultimately  have 
convinced  himself,  for  all  practical  purposes,  that  Harrisson's 
life  was  all  dream.  Yes,  all  a  dream!  The  cold  and  the  gold 
of  the  Klondyke,  the  French  Canadians  at  Ontario,  four  years  on 
a  cattle-ranch  in  California,  five  of  unsuccessful  attempts  to 
practise  at  the  American  Bar — all,  all  a  dream  of  another  man 
named  Harrisson,  dreamed  by  Algernon  Fenwick,  that  big  hairy 
man  at  the  wine-merchant's  in  Bishopsgate,  who  has  a  beautiful 
wife  and  a  daughter  who  swims  like  a  fish.  One  of  the  many 
might-have-beens  that  were  not!  But  a  decision  against  its 
reality  demanded  time,  and  his  revival  of  memory  was  only 
forty-eight  hours  old  so  far. 

Of  course,  he  would  have  liked,  of  all  things,  to  make  full  con- 
fession, and  talk  it  all  out — this  quasi-dream — to  Eosalind;  but 
he  could  not  be  sure  how  much  he  could  safely  bring  to  light, 
how  much  would  be  best  concealed.  He  could  not  run  the 
slightest  risk  when  the  thing  at  stake  was  her  peace  of  mind. 
No,  no — Harrisson  be  hanged!  Him  and  his  money,  too. 

So,  though  things  kept  coming  to  his  recollection,  he  could 
hold  his  peace,  and  did  so.  There  was  nothing  to  come — not 
likely  to  be — that  could  unsay  that  revelation  that  he  had  been 
a  married  man,  and  did  not  know  of  his  wife's  death;  not  even 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  453 

that  he  and  she  had  been  divorced,  which  would  have  been  nearly 
as  bad.  He  knew  the  worst  of  it,  at  any  rate,  and  Rosalind  need 
never  know  it  if  he  kept  it  all  to  himself,  best  and  worst. 

So  that  day  passed,  and  there  was  nothing  to  note  about  it, 
unless  we  mention  that  Sally  was  actually  kept  out  of  the  Channel 
by  Neptune's  little  white  ponies  aforesaid,  which  spoiled  the 
swimming  water — though,  of  course,  it  wasn't  rough — backed 
by  the  fact  that  these  little  sudden  showers  wetted  you  through, 
right  through  your  waterproof,  before  you  knew  where  you  were. 
Dr.  Conrad  came  in  as  usual  in  the  evening,  reporting  that  his 
mother  was  "rather  better."  It  was  a  discouraging  habit  she 
had,  when  she  was  not  known  to  have  been  any  worse  than  usual. 
This  good  lady  always  caught  Commiseration  napping,  if  ever 
that  quality  took  forty  winks.  The  doctor  was  very  silent  this 
evening,  imbibing  Sally  without  comment.  However,  St.  Sen- 
nans  was  drawing  to  a  close  for  all  others.  That  was  enough  to 
account  for  it,  Sally  thought.  It  was  the  last  day  but  one,  and 
poor  Prosy  couldn't  be  expected  to  accept  her  own  view — that 
the  awful  jolliness  of  being  back  at  Krakatoa  Villa  would  even 
compensate — more  than  compensate — for  the  pangs  of  parting 
with  the  Saint.  Sally's  optimism  was  made  of  a  stuff  that  would 
wash,  or  was  all  wool. 

According  to  her  own  account,  she  had  spent  the  whole  day 
wondering  whether  the  battle  between  Tishy  and  her  mother 
had  come  off.  She  said  so  last  thing  of  all  to  her  mother  as  she 
decanted  the  melted  paraffin  of  a  bedroom  candle  whose  wick, 
up  to  its  neck  therein,  was  unable  to  find  a  scope  for  its  genius, 
and  yielded  only  a  spectral  blue  spark  that  went  out  directly 
if  you  carried  it.  Tilted  over,  it  would  lick  in  the  end — this  was 
Sally's  testimony;  and  if  you  dropped  the  grease  on  the  back  of 
the  soap-dish  and  thickened  it  up  to  a  good  blob,  it  would  come 
off  click  when  it  was  cold,  and  not  make  any  mess  at  all. 

"Yes,  I've  been  wondering  all  day  long,"  said  she.  "How  I 
should  enjoy  being  there  to  see!  How  freezing  and  dignified 
the  Dragon  will  be!  Mrs.  Sales  Wilson!  Or  perhaps  she'll 
flare.  (I  wish  this  wick  would;  and  it's  such  disgraceful  waste 
of  good  candle!)" 

"I  do  think,  kitten,  you're  unkind  to  the  poor  lady.  Just 
think  how  she  must  have  dreamed  about  the  splendid  match  her 


454  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

handsome  daughter  was  going  to  make!  And,  you  know,  it  is 
rather  a  come  down.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  of  course  it's  a  come  down.  But  I  don't  pity  the  Dragon 
one  bit.  She  should  have  thought  more  of  Tishy's  happiness, 
and  less  of  her  grandeur.  (It's  just  beginning;  the  flame  will  go 
white  directly.)" 

"She'd  got  some  one  else  in  view  then?"  Rosalind  was  quickly 
perceptive  about  it. 

"Oh  yes;  don't  you  know?  Sir  Penderfield.  (That'll  do  now, 
nicely;  there's  the  white  flame!)  Sir  Oughtred  Penderfield. 
He's  a  Bart,  of  course.  But  he's  a  horror,  and  they  say  his 
father  was  even  worse.  Like  father,  like  son!  And  the  Dragon 
wanted  Tishy  to  accept  him." 

At  the  name  Rosalind  shivered.  The  thought  that  followed 
it  sent  a  knife-cut  to  her  heart.  This  man  that  Sally  had  spoken 
of  so  unconsciously  was  her  brother — at  least,  he  was  brother 
enough  to  her  by  blood  to  make  that  thought  a  blade  to  pene- 
trate the  core  of  her  mother's  soul.  It  was  a  case  for  her  strength 
to  show  itself  in — a  case  for  nettle-grasping  with  a  vengeance. 
She  would  grasp  this  nettle  directly;  but  oh,  for  one  moment — 
only  one  moment — just  to  be  a  little  less  sick  with  the  slice  of 
the  chill  steel!  just  to  quench  the  tremor  she  knew  would  come 
with  her  voice  if  she  tried  now  to  say,  "What  was  the  name? 
Tishy's  pretendu's,  I  mean ;  not  his  father's." 

But  she  could  take  the  whole  of  a  moment,  and  another,  for 
that  matter.  So  she  left  her  words  on  her  tongue's  tip  to  say 
later,  and  felt  secure  that  Sally  would  not  look  up  and  see  the 
dumb  white  face  she  herself  could  see  in  the  mirror  she  sat  be- 
fore. For,  of  course,  she  saw  Sally's  reflection,  too,  its  still 
thoughtful  eyelids  half  shrouded  in  a  broken  coil  of  black  hair 
their  owner's  pearly  teeth  are  detaining  an  end  of,  to  stop  it 
falling  in  the  paraffin  she  is  so  intent  on,  as  she  watches  it  cooling 
on  the  soap-dish. 

"I've  made  it  such  a  jolly  big  blob  it'll  take  ever  so  long  to 
cool.  You  can,  you  know,  if  you  go  gently.  Only  then  the 
middle  stops  soft,  and  if  you  get  in  a  hurry  it  spoils  the  clicket." 
But  it  is  hard  enough  now  to  risk  moving  the  hair  over  it,  and 
Sally's  voice  was  free  to  speak  as  soon  as  her  little  white  hand 
had  swept  the  black  coils  back  beyond  the  round  white  throat. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  455 

Mrs.  Lobjoit's  mirror  has  its  defects  apart  from  some  of  the 
quicksilver  having  been  scratched  off;  but  Rosalind  can  see  the 
merpussy's  image  plain  enough,  and  knows  perfectly  well  that 
before  she  looks  up  she  will  reap  the  harvest  of  happiness  she 
has  been  looking  forward  to.  She  will  "clicket"  off  the  "blob" 
with  her  finger. 

The  moment  of  fruition  comes,  and  a  filbert  thumbnail  spuds 
the  hardened  lozenge  off  the  smooth  glaze.  "There !"  says  Sally, 
"didn't  I  tell  you?  Just  like  ice.  .  .  .  What,  mother?"  For 
her  mother's  question  had  been  asked,  very  slightly  varied,  in  a 
nettle-grasping  sense.  She  has  had  time  to  think. 

"What  was  Tishy's  man's  name — the  other  applicant?  Chris- 
tian name,  I  mean;  not  his  father's." 

"Sir  Oughtred  Penderfield.     Why?" 

"I  remember  there  was  a  small  boy  in  India,  twenty-two  years 
ago,  named  Penderfield.  Is  Oughtred  his  only  name?"  The 
nettle-grasping  there  was  in  this !  Rosalind  felt  consoled  by  her 
own  strength. 

"Can't  say.  He  may  have  a  dozen.  Never  seen  him.  Don't 
want  to!  But  his  hair's  as  black  as  mine,  Tishy  says.  ...  I 
say,  mother,  isn't  it  deliciously  smooth?"  But  this  refers  to  the 
paraffin  lozenge,  not  to  the  hair. 

"Yes,  darling.  Now  I  want  to  get  to  bed,  if  you've  no  objec- 
tion." 

"Certainly,  mother  darling;  but  say  I'm  right  about  the  Dragon 
and  Sir  Penderfield.  Because  I  am,  you  know." 

"Of  course  you  are,  chick.  Only  you  never  told  me  about  him; 
now,  did  you?" 

"Because  I  was  so  honourable.  It  was  a  secret.  Very  well, 
good-night,  then.  .  .  .  Oh,  you  poor  mother!  how  cold  you  are, 
and  I've  been  keeping  you  up!  Good-night!" 

And  off  went  Sally,  leaving  her  mother  to  reason  with  herself 
about  her  own  unreasonableness.  After  all,  what  was  there  in 
the  fact  that  the  little  chap  she  remembered,  seven  years  old,  at 
the  Residency  at  Khopal  twenty  odd  years  ago  had  grown  up  and 
inherited  his  father's  baronetcy?  What  was  there  in  this  to 
discompose  and  upset  her,  to  make  her  breath  catch  and  her 
nerves  thrill?  A  longing  came  on  her  that  Gerry  should  not 
look  in  to  say  good-night  till  she  was  in  a  position  to  refuse 


456  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

interviewing  on  the  score  of  impending  sleep.  She  made  a  dash 
for  bed,  and  got  the  light  out,  out-generalling  him  by  perhaps  a 
minute. 

What  could  she  expect?  Not  that  little  Tamerlane,  as  his 
father  called  him,  should  die  just  to  be  out  of  her  path.  It  was 
no  fault  of  his  that  he  was  his  father's  son,  with — how  could  she 
doubt  after  what  Sally  had  just  said? — the  curse  of  his  father's 
form  of  manhood  or  beasthood  upon  him.  And  yet,  might  it 
not  have  been  better  that  he  should  have  died,  the  innocent  child 
she  knew  him,  than  live  to  follow  his  father's  footsteps?  Better, 
best  of  all  that  the  whole  evil  brood  should  perish  and  be  for- 
gotten. .  .  .  Stop! 

For  the  thought  she  had  framed  caught  her  breath  and  held 
it,  caught  her  by  the  heart  and  checked  its  beating,  caught  her 
by  the  brain  and  stopped  its  thinking;  and  she  was  glad  when 
her  husband's  voice  found  her,  dumb  and  stunned  in  the  silence, 
and  brought  a  respite  to  the  unanswerable  enigma  she  was  face 
to  face  with. 

"Hullo!  light  out  already?  Beg  your  pardon,  darling.  Good- 
night!" 

"I  wasn't  asleep."  So  he  came  in  and  said  good-night  officially 
and  departed.  His  voice  and  his  presence  had  staved  off  a  night- 
mare idea  that  was  on  the  watch  to  seize  on  her — how  if  chance 
had  brought  Sally  across  this  unsuspected  relation  of  hers,  and 
events  had  forced  a  full  declaration  of  their  kinship?  Somnus 
jumped  at  the  chance  given  by  its  frustration;  the  sea  air  as- 
serted itself,  and  went  into  partnership  with  him,  and  Rosalind's 
mind  was  carried  captive  into  dreamland. 

But  not  before  she  had  heard  her  husband  stop  singing  to  him- 
self a  German  student's  song  as  he  closed  his  door  on  himself 
for  the  night. 

"  War  ich  zum  grossen  Herrn  geboren,  wie  Eaiser  Maximilian.   .   .  ." 

There  could  be  no  further  unwelcome  memories  there,  thank 
Heaven!  No  mind  oppressed  by  them  could  possibly  sing 
"Kram-bam-bambuli,  krambam-bu  -1  i  I" 


CHAPTER  XL 

BATHING  WEATHER  AGAIN,  AND  A  LETTER  FROM  TISHY  BRADSHAW.  THE 
TRIUMPH  OF  ORPHEUS.  BUT  WAS  IT  EURYDICE  OR  THE  LITTLE  BAT- 
TERY? THE  REV.  MR.  HERRICK.  OF  A  REVERIE  UNDER  A  BATHING- 
MACHINE,  AND  OF  GWENDOLEN'S  MAMMA'S  CONNECTING-LINK.  OF 
DR.  CONRAD'S  MAMMA'S  DONKEY-CHAIR,  AND  HIS  GREAT-AUNT  ELIZA. 
HOW  SALLY  AND  HE  STARTED  FOR  THEIR  LAST  WALK  AT  ST.  SENNANS 

THE  next  day  the  morning  was  bright  and  the  sea  was  clear  of 
Poseidon's  ponies.  They  had  gone  somewhere  else.  Therefore, 
it  behooved  Mrs.  Lobjoit  to  get  breakfast  quick,  because  it  was 
absurd  to  expect  anybody  to  go  in  directly  after,  and  the  water 
wouldn't  be  good  later  than  half-past  ten.  Which  Sally,  coming 
downstairs  at  eight,  impressed  on  Mrs.  Lobjoit,  who  entered  her 
own  recognisances  that  it  should  appear  as  by  magic  the  very 
minute  your  mamma  came  down.  For  it  is  one  of  the  pleasures 
of  anticipation-of-a-joy-to-come  to  bring  about  its  antecedents 
too  soon,  and  so  procure  a  blank  period  of  unqualified  existence 
to  indulge  Hope  in  without  alloy.  Even  so,  when  true  prudence 
wishes  to  catch  a  train,  she  orders  her  cab  an  hour  before,  and 
takes  tickets  twenty  minutes  before,  and  arrives  on  the  platform 
eighteen  minutes  before  there  is  the  slightest  necessity  to  do  so; 
and  then  she  stands  on  the  said  platform  and  lives  for  the  train 
that  is  to  be,  and  inquires  of  every  guard,  ticket-taker,  and  points- 
man with  respect  to  every  linear  yard  of  the  platform  edge, 
whether  her  train  is  going  to  come  up  there;  and  they  ask  each 
other  questions,  and  give  prismatic  information;  and  then  the 
train  for  Paradise  (let  us  say)  comes  reluctantly  backwards  into 
the  station  with  friends  standing  on  its  margin,  and  prudence 
seizes  her  valise  and  goes  at  a  hand-gallop  to  the  other  end,  where 
the  nth  class  is,  and  is  only  just  in  time  to  get  a  corner  seat. 

So,  though  there  was  no  fear  of  the  tide  going  out  as  fast  as 
the  train  for  Paradise,  Sally,  relying  on  Mrs.  Lobjoit,  who  had 
become  a  very  old  friend  in  eight  weeks,  felt  she  had  done  well 

467 


458  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

to  be  beforehand,  and,  as  breakfast  would  be  twenty  minutes,  sat 
down  to  write  a  letter  to  Tishy.  She  wrote  epistle-wise,  heedless 
of  style  and  stops,  and  as  her  mother  was  also  twenty  minutes — 
we  are  not  responsible  for  these  expressions — she  wrote  a  heap  of 
it.  Then  events  thickened,  as  Fenwick,  returning  from  an  early 
dip,  met  the  postman  outside,  and  came  in  bearing  an  expected 
letter  which  Sally  pounced  upon. 

"All  about  the  row!"  said  she,  attacking  an  impregnable  corner 
of  the  envelope  with  a  fork-point,  in  a  fever  of  impatience  to  get 
at  the  contents.  "Hang  these  envelopes!  There,  that's  done 
it!  Whatever  they  want  to  sticky  them  up  so  for  I  can't 
imagine.  .  .  ." 

"Get  your  breakfast,  kitten,  and  read  it  after." 

"I  dare  say.  Catch  me!  No,  I'm  the  sort  that  never  waits 
for  anything.  .  .  .  No,  mummy  darling;  it  shan't  get  cold.  I 
can  gormandize  and  read  aloud  both  at  once." 

But  she  doesn't  keep  her  promise,  for  she  dives  straight  into 
an  exploration  ahead,  and  meanly  says,  "Just  half  a  minute  till 
I  see  what's  coming,"  or,  "Only  to  the  end  of  this  sentence,"  and 
also  looks  very  keen  and  animated,  and  throws  in  short  notes  of 
exclamation  and  well's  and  there's  and  think  of  that's,  till  Fen- 
wick  enters  a  protest. 

"Don't  cheat,  Sarah!"  he  says.  "Play  fair!  If  you  won't 
read  it  aloud  yourself,  let  somebody  else." 

"There's  the  first  sheet  to  keep  you  quiet,  Jeremiah!"  Who, 
however,  throws  it  over  to  Eosalind,  who  throws  it  back  with  a 
laugh. 

"What  a  couple  of  big  babies  you  two  are!"  she  exclaims.  "As 
if  I  couldn't  possess  my  soul  in  peace  for  five  minutes!  Do  put 
the  letter  by  till  you've  had  your  breakfasts." 

But  this  course  was  not  approved,  and  the  contents  of  Lastitia's 
epistle  came  out  by  fits  and  jerks  and  starts,  and  may  be  said 
to  have  been  mixed  with  tea  and  coffee  and  eggs  and  bacon  and 
toast.  Perhaps  we  had  better  leave  these  out,  and  give  the  letter 
intact.  Here  it  is: 

"DEABEST  SALLY, 

"I  am  going  to  keep  my  promise,  and  write  you  a  long  letter 
at  once,  and  tell  you  all  about  our  reception  at  home.  You  will 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  459 

say  it  wasn't  worth  writing,  especially  as  you  will  be  back  on 
Monday.  However,  a  promise  is  a  promise ! 

"We  got  to  Victoria  at  seven,  and  were  not  so  very  late  con- 
sidering at  G.  Terrace;  but  when  we  had  had  something  to  eat 
I  propounded  my  idea  I  told  you  of,  that  we  should  just  go 
straight  on,  and  beard  mamma  in  her  own  den,  and  have  it  out. 
I  knew  I  shouldn't  sleep  unless  we  did.  Paggy  said,  'Wouldn't 
it  do  as  well  if  he  called  there  to-morrow  for  the  Strad — which 
we  had  left  behind  last  time  as  a  connecting-link  to  go  and  fetch 
away — and  me  to  meet  him  as  he  came  from  the  shop?'  But 
suprise-tactics  were  better — I  knew  they  would  be — and  now 
Paggy  admits  I  was  right. 

"Of  course,  Thomas  stared  when  he  saw  who  it  was,  and  was 
going  to  sneak  off  without  announcing  us,  and  Fossett,  who  just 
crossed  us  in  the  passage,  was  perfectly  comic.  Pag  said  after- 
wards she  was  bubbling  over  with  undemonstrativeness,  which 
was  clever  for  him.  I  simply  said  to  Thomas  that  I  thought  he 
had  better  announce  us,  as  we  weren't  expected,  and  he  asked 
who  he  was  to  announce,  miss!  Actually,  I  was  rather  relieved 
when  Pag  said,  'Say  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Julius  Bradshaw.'  I  should 
have  laughed,  I  know.  Thomas  looked  a  model  of  discretion 
that  wouldn't  commit  itself  either  way,  and  did  as  he  was  bid 
in  an  apologetic  voice;  but  he  turned  round  on  the  stairs  to  say 
to  me,  'I  suppose  you  know,  msam,  there's  two  ladies  and  a  gentle- 
man been  dining  here?'  Because  he  began  miss  and  ended 
ma'am,  and  then  turned  scarlet.  Pag  said  after  he  thought 
Thomas  wanted  to  caution  us  against  a  bigamist  mamma  was 
harbouring. 

"Papa  was  very  nice,  really.  His  allusion  to  our  little  escapade 
was  the  only  one  made,  and  might  have  meant  nothing  at  all. 
'Well,  you're  a  nice  couple  of  people,  upon  my  word!'  and  then, 
seeing  that  mamma  remained  a  block  (which  she  can),  he  intro- 
duced Paggy  to  one  of  the  two  ladies  as  'My  son-in-law,  Mr. 
Julius  Bradshaw.'  I'm  sure  mamma  gave  a  wooden  snort  and 
was  ashamed  of  it  before  visitors,  because  she  did  another  rather 
more  probable  one  directly  after,  and  pretended  it  was  only  that 
sort.  Really,  except  a  peck  for  me  and  saying  howd  and  nothing 
more  to  Paggy,  she  kept  herself  to  herself.  But  it  didn't  matter, 
because  of  what  happened.  Really,  it  quite  made  me  jump— 


460  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

I  mean  the  way  the  lady  Pag  was  introduced  to  rushed  into  his 
arms.  I  wasn't  sure  I  hadn't  better  take  him  away  at  once.  She 
was  a  celebrated  German  pianiste  that  had  accompanied  him  in 
Paris.  Mamma  was  at  school  with  her  at  Frankfort.  She  had 
been  inconsolable  at  the  disappearance  of  the  great  Carissimi, 
whose  playing  of  the  Kreutzer  was  the  only  perfectly  sympathetic 
one  she  had  ever  met.  Was  she  never  to  play  it  with  him  again? 
Alas,  no!  for  she  was  off  to  Vienna  to-morrow,  and  then  to  New 
York,  and  if  the  ship  went  down  she  would  never  play  the 
Kreutzer  with  Signore  Carissimi  again! 

"I  saw  papa's  eye  looking  mischievous,  and  then  he  pointed 
to  the  Strad,  where  it  was  lying  on  the  piano — locked  up  safe; 
we  saw  to  that — and  said  there  was  Paganini's  fiddle,  why  not 
play  the  Cruet-stand,  or  Avhatever  you  called  it,  now?  Mamma 
found  her  voice,  but  lost  her  judgment,  for  she  tried  to  block 
the  performance  on  a  fibby  ground.  Think  how  late  it  was,  and 
how  it  would  be  keeping  Madame  von  Hofenhoffer!  She  put 
her  head  in  the  lion's  mouth  there,  for  the  Frau  immediately 
said  she  would  play  all  night  rather  than  lose  a  note  of  Signore 
Carissimi.  The  other  two  went,  and  nobody  wanted  them.  I've 
forgotten  the  woman's  second  husband's  name — he's  dead — but 
her  son's  the  man  I  told  you  about.  Of  course,  he  hadn't  ex- 
pected to  meet  me,  and  I  hope  he  felt  like  a  fool.  I  was  so  glad 
it  wasn't  him,  but  Paggy.  They  played  right  through  the 
Kreutzer,  and  didn't  want  the  music,  which  couldn't  be  found, 
and  then  did  bits  again,  and  it  was  absolutely  glorious.  Even 
mamma  (she's  fond  of  music — it's  her  only  good  quality — and 
where  should  I  get  mine  from  if  she  wasn't?)  couldn't  stop  quite 
stony,  though  she  did  her  best,  I  promise  you.  As  for  papa,  he 
was  chuckling  so  over  mamma's  dilemma — because  she  wanted 
to  trample  on  Paggy,  and  it  was  a  dilemma — that  he  didn't  care 
how  long  it  went  on.  And  do  you  know,  dear,  it  did  go  on — 
one  thing  after  another,  that  Frau  glued  to  the  clavier  like  a 
limpet  not  detachable  without  violence — till  nearly  one  in  the 
morning,  having  begun  at  ten  about!  And  there  was  papa  and 
Egerton  and  Theeny  all  sniggering  at  mamma,  I  know,  in  secret, 
and  really  proud  of  the  connexion,  if  the  truth  were  known. 
Mamma  tried  to  get  a  little  revenge  by  saying  to  me  freezingly 
when  the  Hofenhoffer  had  gone:  'I  suppose  you  are  going  home 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  461 

with  Mr.  Bradshaw,  Laetitia?  Good-night.'  And  then  she  said 
goodn  to  Paggy  just  as  she  had  said  howd.  I  thought  Paggy  be- 
haved so  nicely.  However,  I'll  tell  you  all  about  that  on  Monday. 
"Papa  was  very  nice — came  out  on  the  doorstep  to  say  good- 
night, and,  do  you  know — it  really  is  very  odd;  it  must  be  the 
sea  air — papa  said  to  Paggy  as  we  were  starting:  'How's  the 
head — the  nerves,  you  know — eh,  Master  Julius?'  And  actually 
Paggy  said:  'Why,  God  bless  my  soul,  I  had  forgotten  all  about 
them!'  Oh,  Sally  darling,  just  think!  Suppose  they  got  well, 
and  all  because  I  treated  him  to  a  honeymoon!  Oh,  my  gracious, 
what  a  long  letter!" 

"There  now!  that  is  a  letter  and  a  half.  'With  love  from  us 
both/  mine  affectionately.  And  twelve  pages!  And  Tishy's 
hand's  not  so  large,  neither,  as  all  that."  This  is  Sally,  as  epi- 
logue; but  her  mother  puts  in  a  correction: 

"It's  thirteen  pages.  There's  a  bit  on  a  loose  page  you  haven't 
read."  Sally  has  seen  that,  and  it  was  nothing — so  she  says;  but 
Fenwick  picks  it  up  and  reads  it  aloud: 

"P.S.— Just  a  line  to  say  I've  remembered  that  name.  She's 
Herrick — married  a  parson  in  India  soon  after  her  Penderfield 
husband  died.  She's  great  on  reformatories." 

Sally  reread  her  letter  with  a  glow  of  interest  on  her  face  and 
a  passing  approval  or  echo  now  and  then.  She  noticed  nothing 
unusual  in  either  her  mother  or  her  stepfather;  but  she  did  not 
look  up,  so  absorbed  was  she. 

Had  she  done  so  she  might  have  wondered  why  her  mother 
had  gone  so  pale  suddenly,  and  why  there  should  be  that  puzzled 
absent  look  on  the  handsome  face  her  eyes  remained  fixed  on 
across  the  table;  but  her  own  mind  was  far  away,  deep  in  her 
amusement  at  her  friend's  letter,  full  of  her  image  of  the  dis- 
concerted Dragon  and  the  way  Paganini  and  Beethoven  in 
alliance  had  ridden  rough-shod  over  Mrs.  Grundy  and  social  dis- 
tinctions. She  saw  nothing,  and  finished  a  cup  of  coffee  undis- 
turbed, and  asked  for  more. 

Fenwick,  caught  by  some  memory  or  association  he  could  not 
define  or  give  its  place  to,  for  the  moment  looked  at  neither  of 
his  companions.  Rosalind,  only  too  clear  about  all  the  post- 
script of  the  letter  had  brought  before  her  own  mind,  saw  reason 


462  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

to  dread  its  effect  on  his.  The  linking  of  the  name  of  Fender- 
field  and  that  of  the  clergyman  who  had  married  them  at  Um- 
balla — a  name  that,  two  days  since,  had  had  a  familiar  sound  to 
him  when  she  incautiously  uttered  it — was  using  Suggestion  to 
bait  a  trap  for  Memory.  She  felt  she  was  steering  through 
shoal- waters  perilousty  near  the  wind;  but  she  made  no  attempt 
to  break  his  reverie.  She  might  do  as  much  harm  as  good.  She 
only  watched  his  face,  feeling  its  contrast  to  that  of  the  absorbed 
and  happy  merpussy,  rejoicing  in  the  fortunate  outcome  of  her 
friend's  anxieties. 

It  was  a  great  relief  when,  with  a  deep  breath  and  a  shake, 
akin  to  a  horse's  when  the  flies  won't  take  a  hint,  Fenwick  flung 
off  the  oppression,  whatever  it  was,  and  came  back  into  the  living 
world  on  a  stepping-stone  of  the  back-talk. 

"Well  done,  Paganini!  Nothing  like  it  since  Orpheus  and 
Eurydice — only  this  time  it  was  Proserpine,  not  Pluto,  that  had 
to  be  put  to  sleep.  .  .  .  What's  the  matter,  darling?  Anything 
wrong?" 

"Nothing  at  all.    I  was  looking  at  you." 

"Well,  Pm  all  right!"  And  Sally  looked  up  from  her  letter 
for  a  moment  to  say,  "There's  nothing  the  matter  with  Jeremiah," 
and  went  on  reading  as  before.  Sally's  attitude  about  him  al- 
ways implied  a  kind  of  proprietorship,  as  in  a  large,  fairly  well- 
behaved  dog.  Eosalind  felt  glad  she  had  not  looked  at  her, 

Presently  Fenwick  said:  "Now,  who's  coming  for  a  walk  with 
me?"  But  Sally  was  off  directly  to  find  the  Swiss  girl  she  some- 
times bathed  with,  and  Eosalind  thought  it  would  be  nice  in  a 
sheltered  place  on  the  beach.  She  really  wanted  to  be  alone, 
and  knew  the  shortest  way  to  this  was  to  sit  still,  especially  in 
the  morning;  but  Gerry  had  better  get  Vereker  to  go  for  a  walk. 
Perhaps  she  would  look  in  at  his  mother's  later.  So  Fenwick, 
after  a  customary  caution  to  Sally  not  to  drown  herself,  went 
away  to  find  Conrad,  as  he  generally  called  him  now. 

Rosalind  was  shirking  a  problem  she  dared  not  face  from  a 
cowardly  conviction  of  its  insolubility.  What  would  she  do  if 
Gerry  should,  without  some  warning,  identify  her?  She  had  to 
confess  to  herself  that  she  had  no  clue  at  all  to  the  effect  it  would 
have,  coming  suddenly,  on  him.  She  could  at  least  imagine 
aspects,  attitudes,  tones  of  voice  for  him  if  it  came  slowly;  but 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  463 

she  could  not  supply  any  image  of  him,  under  other  circum- 
stances, not  more  or  less  founded  on  her  recollections  of  twenty 
years  ago.  Might  she  not  lose  him  again,  as  she  lost  him  then? 
She  must  get  nearer  to  safety  than  she  was  now.  Was  she  not 
relying  on  the  house  not  catching  fire  instead  of  negotiating  in- 
surance policies  or  providing  fire  extinguishers? 

She  would  go  and  sit  under  the  shelter  of  one  of  the  many 
unemployed  machines — for  only  a  few  daring  spirits  would  follow 
Sally's  example  to-day — and  try  to  think  it  out.  Just  a  few  in- 
structions to  Mrs.  Lobjoit,  and  a  word  or  two  of  caution  to  Gerry 
not  to  fall  over  cliffs,  or  to  get  rim  over  at  level-crossings  or  get 
sunstrokes,  or  get  cold,  etc.,  and  she  would  fall  back  on  her  own 
society  and  think.  .  .  . 

Yes,  that  was  the  question!  Might  she  not  lose  him  again? 
And  if  she  did,  how  live  without  him  ?  ..  .  .  Oh  yes,  she  would 
be  no  worse  off  than  before,  in  a  certain  sense.  She  would  have 
Sally  still  ...  but  ... 

Which  would  be  the  worse?  The  loss  of  the  husband  whom 
every  day  taught  her  to  love  more  dearly,  or  the  task  of  explaining 
the  cause  of  her  loss  to  Sally?  The  one  she  fixed  her  mind  on 
always  seemed  intolerable.  As  for  the  other  contingencies — dif- 
ficulties of  making  all  clear  to  friends,  and  so  forth — let  them 
go;  they  were  not  worth  a  thought.  But  she  must  be  beforehand, 
and  know  how  to  act,  how  to  do  her  best  to  avert  both,  if  the  thing 
she  dreaded  came  to  pass.  .  .  . 

There  now!  Here  she  was  settled  under  the  lee  of  a  machine 
— happily  the  shadow-side,  for  the  sun  was  warm — and  the  white 
foam  of  the  undertow  was  guilty  of  a  tremendous  glare — the  one 
the  people  who  can't  endure  the  seaside  get  neuralgia  from — and 
Sally  was  going  to  come  out  of  the  second  machine  directly  in 
the  Turkey-twill  knickers,  and  find  her  way  through  the  selvage- 
wave  and  the  dazzle,  or  get  knocked  down  and  have  to  try  back. 
Surely  Rosalind,  instead  of  saying  over  and  over  again  that  she 
must  be  ready  to  meet  the  coming  evil,  possibly  close  at  hand, 
ought  to  make  a  serious  effort  to  become  so.  She  found  herself, 
even  at  this  early  hour  of  the  day,  tired  with  the  strain  of  a 
misgiving  that  an  earthquake  was  approaching;  and  as  those  who 
have  lived  through  earthquakes  become  unstrung  at  every 
slightest  tremor  of  the  earth's  crust  beneath  them,  so  she  felt 


464  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

that  the  tension  begun  with  that  recurrence  of  two  days  ago  had 
grown  and  grown,  and  threatened  to  dominate  her  mind,  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  else.  Every  little  thing,  such  as  the  look  on  her 
husband's  face  half  an  hour  ago,  made  her  say  to  herself,  as  the 
earthquake-haunted  man  says  at  odd  times  all  through  the  day 
and  night,  "Is  this  it?  Has  it  come?"  and  she  saw  before  her  no 
haven  of  peace. 

What  was  it  now  she  really  most  feared?  Simply  the  effect 
of  the  revelation  on  her  husband's  mind — an  effect  no  human 
creature  could  make  terms  with.  She  was  not  the  least  afraid 
of  anything  he  could  say  or  do,  delirium  apart;  but  see  what 
delirium  had  made  of  him — she  was  sure  it  was  so — in  that  old 
evil  hour  when  he  had  flung  her  from  him  and  gone  away  in 
anger  to  try  to  get  her  sentence  of  banishment  ratified.  How 
could  she  guard  against  a  repetition,  in  some  form  or  other,  of 
the  disastrous  errors  of  that  unhappy  time? 

As  we  know,  she  was  still  in  ignorance  of  all  the  revived 
memories  he  had  told  to  Vereker;  but  she  knew  there  had  been 
something — disjointed,  perhaps,  and  not  to  be  relied  on,  as  the 
doctor  had  said,  but  none  the  less  to  be  feared  on  that  account. 
She  had  seen  the  effect  of  his  sleepless  night  before  he  went  away 
with  Vereker,  and  knew  it  to  be  connected  with  mental  disturb- 
ance outside  and  beyond  mere  loss  of  rest;  and  she  had  an  uneasy 
sense  that  something  was  being  kept  from  her.  She  could  not 
but  believe  Gerry's  cheerfulness  was  partly  assumed.  Had  he 
been  quite  at  ease  about  his  recollections,  surely  he  would  have 
told  them  to  her.  Then  this  had  all  come  on  the  top  of  that 
Kreutzkammer  one.  The  most  upsetting  thing  of  all,  though, 
was  the  change  that  had  come  over  him  suddenly  at  breakfast, 
just  after  he  had  read  aloud  the  name  Herrick — a  name  he  had 
seemed  not  free  from  memory  of  when  her  tongue  was  betrayed 
into  speaking  it — and  the  name  Penderfield.  If  it  was  due  to 
this  last,  so  much  the  worse!  It  was  the  name  of  all  others  that 
was  best  for  oblivion. 

How  hard  it  seemed  that  it  must  needs  force  itself  to  the  fore 
in  this  way !  Its  present  intrusion  into  her  life  and  surroundings 
was  utterly  unconnected  with  anything  in  the  past.  Sally's 
friendship  with  Lastitia  began  in  a  music-class  six  years  ago. 
The  Sales  Wilsons  were  people  to  all  appearance  as  un-Indian 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  465 

as  any  folk  need  be.  Why  must  Sally's  friend,  of  all  others,  be 
the  object  of  its  owner's  unwelcome  admiration?  To  think,  too, 
how  near  she  had  been  to  a  precipice  without  knowing  it !  Sup- 
pose she  had  come  face  to  face  with  that  woman  again!  To  be 
sure,  her  intercourse  with  Ladbroke  Grove  Road  was  limited  to 
one  stiff  exchange  of  calls  in  "the  season."  Still,  it  might  have 
happened  .  .  .  but  where  was  the  use  of  begging  and  borrowing 
troubles? 

Was  it,  or  was  it  not,  the  fact,  she  asked  herself,  that  now, 
after  all  these  years,  she  thought  of  this  woman  as  worse  than 
her  husband,  the  iniquity  of  the  accomplice  as  more  diabolical 
than  that  of  the  principal?  She  found  she  could  not  answer 
this  in  the  negative  off-hand.  The  paradox  was  also  before  her 
that  that  incorrigible  amphibious  treasure  of  hers,  whose  voice 
was  even  now  shouting  to  her  more  timorous  friend  from  beyond 
the  selvage-wave  she  had  just  contemptuously  dived  through — 
that  that  Sally,  inexchangeable  for  anything  she  could  conceive 
or  imagine,  must  needs  have  been  something  quite  other  than 
she  was,  had  she  come  of  any  other  technical  paternity  than  the 
accursed  one  she  had  to  own  to.  Was  there  some  terrible  law 
in  Nature  that  slow  forgiveness  of  the  greatest  wrong  that  can 
be  wrought  must  perforce  be  granted  to  its  inflictor,  through  the 
gracious  survivor  of  a  brutal  indifference  that  would  almost  add 
to  his  crime,  if  that  were  possible?  If,  so,  surely  the  Universe 
must  be  the  work  of  an  Almighty  Fiend,  a  Demiurgus  with  a 
cruel  heart,  and  this  the  masterstroke  of  all  his  cunning.  But 
what,  in  Heaven's  name,  was  the  use  of  bruising  her  brains 
against  the  conundrums  of  the  great  unanswered  metaphysical 
sphinx?  Better  be  contented  with  the  easy  vernacular  solution 
of  the  rhymester: 

"  Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow, 
Evils  from  circumstances  grow." 

Because  she  felt  she  was  getting  no  nearer  the  solution  of  her 
own  problem,  and  was,  if  anything,  wandering  from  the  point. 

Another  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  was  beginning  to  take 
form:  had  hung  about  her  mind  and  forsaken  it  more  than  once. 
Might  it  not  be  better,  after  all,  to  dash  at  the  position  and 
capture  it  while  her  forces  were  well  under  control?  To  pursue 


466  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

the  metaphor,  the  commissariat  might  not  hold  out.  Better 
endure  the  ills  we  have — of  course,  Eosalind  knew  all  that — 
than  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of.  But  suppose  we  have 
a  chance  of  flying  to  others  we  can  measure  the  length  and 
breadth  of,  and  staving  off  thereby  an  uncalculable  unknown? 
She  felt  she  almost  knew  the  worst  that  could  come  of  taking 
Gerry  into  her  confidence,  telling  him  boldly  all  about  himself, 
provided  she  could  choose  her  opportunity  and  make  sure  Sally 
was  well  out  of  the  way.  The  concealment  from  Sally  was  the 
achievement  whose  failure  involved  the  greatest  risk.  Her  hus- 
band's mind  would  bear  the  knowledge  of  his  story  well  or  ill 
according  to  the  way  in  which  it  reached  him;  but  the  necessity 
of  keeping  her  girl  in  ignorance  of  it  was  a  thing  absolute.  Any 
idea  that  Sally's  origin  could  be  concealed  from  her,  and  her 
stepfather's  identity  made  known,  Eosalind  dismissed  as  simply 
fantastic. 

A  lady  who  had  established  herself  below  high-water  mark 
with  many  more  books  than  she  could  read,  and  plant  capable 
of  turning  out  much  more  work  than  she  could  do,  at  this  point 
fled  for  safety  from  a  rush  of  white  foam.  It  went  back  for 
more,  meaning  to  wet  her  through  next  time;  but  had  to  bear 
its  disappointment.  Mrs.  Arkwright — for  it  was  Gwendolen's 
mamma — being  driven  from  the  shadow  of  the  breakwater,  cast 
about  her  for  a  new  lodgment,  and  perceived  one  beside  Mrs. 
Fenwick,  whom  she  thought  very  well  for  the  seaside,  but  not 
to  leave  cards  on.  Might  she  come  up  there,  beside  you?  Rosa- 
lind didn't  want  her,  but  had  to  pretend  she  did,  to  encourage 
her  advent.  It  left  behind  it  a  track  of  skeins  and  volumes, 
which  had  trickled  from  the  fugitive,  but  were  recovered  by  a 
domestic,  and  pronounced  dry.  Besides,  they  were  only  library 
books,  and  didn't  matter. 

"I  haven't  seen  you  since  the  other  day  on  the  pier,  Mrs.  Fen- 
wick,  or  I  wanted  to  have  asked  you  more  about  that  charm- 
ing young  couple,  the  Julian  Attwoods.  Oh  dear!  I  knew  I 
should  get  the  name  wrong.  .  .  .  Bradshaw!  Yes,  of  course." 
Her  vivid  perception  of  what  the  name  really  is,  when  apprised 
of  it,  almost  amounts  to  a  paroxysm.  You  see,  on  the  pier  that 
day,  she  made  a  bad  blunder  over  those  Bradshaw  people,  and 
though  she  had  consoled  her  conscience  by  admitting  to  her 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  467 

husband  that  she  had  "mis  le  pied  dans  le  plat,"  still,  she  thought, 
if  she  was  actually  going  to  plump  down  on  Mrs.  Fenwick's  piece 
of  beach,  she  ought  to  do  a  little  more  apology.  By-the-bye, 
why  is  it  that  ladies  of  her  sort  always  resort  to  snippets  of 
French  idiom,  whenever  they  get  involved  in  a  quagmire  of 
delicacy — or  indelicacy,  as  may  be?  Will  Gwendolen  grow  like 
her  mother?  However,  that  doesn't  concern  us  now. 

A  little  stiffness  on  Rosalind's  part  was  really  due  to  her  wish 
to  be  by  herself,  but  Mrs.  Arkwright  ascribed  it  to  treasured 
resentment  against  her  blunders  of  two  days  since.  Now,  she 
was  a  person  who  could  never  let  anything  drop — a  tugging 
person.  She  proceeded  to  develop  the  subject. 

"Really  a  most  interesting  story !  I  need  hardly  say  that  my 
informants  had  given  me  no  particulars.  Very  old  friends  of 
my  husband's.  Quite  possible  they  really  knew  nothing  of  this 
young  gentleman's  musical  gifts.  Simply  told  my  husband  the 
tale  as  I  told  it  to  you.  Just  that  the  daughter  of  an  old  friend 
of  theirs,  Professor  Sales  Wilson — the  Professor  Sales  Wilson — 
of  course,  quite  a  famous  name  in  literature — scholarship — that 
sort  of  thing — had  run  away  with  a  shopman !  That  was  what 
my  husband  heard,  you  know.  7  merely  repeated  it." 

"Wasn't  it,  as  things  go,  rather  a  malicious  way  of  putting 
it — on  their  part?" 

Mrs.  Arkwright  gave  sagacious  nods,  indicative  of  comfortable 
"u?e-know-the-world-we-live-in-and-won't-pretend"  relationships 
between  herself  and  the  speaker.  They  advertised  perfect  mutual 
understanding  on  a  pinnacle  of  married  experience.  Fancy 
there  being  any  need  for  anything  else  between  us!  they  said. 
Their  editor  then  supplied  explanatory  text:  "Of  course  there  may 
have  been  a  soupgon  of  personal  feeling  in  the  case — bias,  pique, 
whatever  one  likes  to  call  it.  You  know,  dear  Mrs.  Fenwick?" 
But  Mrs.  Fenwick  waited  for  further  illumination.  "Well,  you 
know  ...  I  suppose  it's  rather  a  breach  of  confidence,  only  I 
know  I  shall  be  safe  with  you.  .  .  ." 

"Don't  tell  me  any  secrets,  Mrs.  Arkwright.  I'm  not  safe." 
But  Mrs.  Arkwright  was  not  a  person  to  be  put  off  in  this  way. 
Not  she!  She  meant  elucidation,  and  nothing  short  of  bayonets 
would  stop  her. 

"Well,  really,  perhaps  I'm  making  it  of  too  much  importance 


468  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

to  talk  of  breaches  of  confidence.  After  all,  it  only  amounts  to 
a  gentleman  having  been  disappointed.  Of  course,  his  relations 
would  .  .  .  don't  you  see?  .  .  ." 

"Was  it  some  man  that  was  after  Tishy?"  asked  Rosalind, 
wondering  how  many  more  rejected  suitors  were  wearing  the 
willow  about  the  haberdasher's  bride.  She  had  heard  of  one,  only 
last  night.  She  was  not  putting  two  and  two  together. 

"I  dare  say  everybody  knows  it,  and  it's  only  my  nonsensical 
caution.  But  one  does  get  so  timorous  of  saying  anything.  You 
know,  dear  Mrs.  Fenwick!  However,  it's  better  to  say  it  out 
now — of  course,  quite  between  ourselves,  you  know.  It  was  Mrs. 
Samuel  Herrick's  son,  Sir  Charles  Penderfield.  He's  the  present 
baronet,  you  know.  Father  was  in  the  army — rather  distin- 
guished man,  I  fancy.  Her  second  husband  was  a  clergy- 
man. .  .  ."  Here  followed  social  analysis,  some  of  which  Rosa- 
lind could  have  corrected.  The  speaker  floundered  a  little  among 
county  families,  and  then  resumed  the  main  theme.  "Mrs.  Her- 
rick  is  a  sort  of  connexion  of  my  husband's  (I  don't  exactly 
know  what;  but  then,  I  never  do  know — family  is  such  a  bore), 
and  it  was  she  told  him  all  about  this.  I  always  forget  these 
things  when  they're  told  me.  But  I  can  quite  understand  that 
the  young  man's  mother,  in  speaking  of  it  ...  you  under- 
stand? .  .  ." 

"Oh,  of  course,  naturally.  I  think  my  daughter's  coming  out. 
I  saw  her  machine-door  move."  Rosalind  began  collecting  her- 
self for  departure. 

"But,  of  course,  you  won't  repeat  any  of  this — but,  of  course, 
I  know  I  can  rely  upon  you — but,  of  course,  it  doesn't  really 
matter.  ..."  A  genial  superior  tone  of  toleration  for  man- 
kind's foibles  as  seen  by  the  two  speakers  from  an  elevation  comes 
in  at  this  point  juicily.  It  meets  an  appreciative  response  in 
the  prolonged  first  syllable  of  Rosalind's  "Certainly.  I  never 
should  dream,"  etc.,  whose  length  makes  up  for  an  imperfect 
finish — a  dispersal  of  context  from  which  a  farewell  good-morn- 
ing emerges  clear,  hand-in-hand  with  a  false  statement  that  the 
speaker  has  enjoyed  sitting  there  talking. 

Rosalind  had  not  enjoyed  it  at  all.  She  was  utilising  the  mer- 
pussy's  return  to  land  as  a  means  of  escape,  because,  had  there 
been  no  Mrs.  Arkwright,  and  no  folk-chatter,  Sally  would  have 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  469 

come  scranching  up  the  shingle,  and  flung  herself  down  beside 
her  mother.  As  it  was,  Rosalind's  "Oh,  /  am  so  glad  to  get  away 
from  that  woman!"  told  a  tale.  And  Sally's  truthful  soul  in- 
terpreted the  upshot  of  that  tale  as  prohibitive  of  merely  going 
away  and  sitting  down  elsewhere.  She  and  her  mother  were  in 
honour  bound  to  have  promised  to  meet  somebody  somewhere — 
say,  for  instance,  Mrs.  Vereker  and  her  son  and  donkey-chair. 
Sally  said  it,  for 'instance,  seeing  something  of  the  sort  would 
soothe  the  position;  and  the  two  of  them  met  the  three,  or  rather 
the  three  and  a  half,  for  we  had  forgotten  the  boy  to  whom  the 
control  of  the  donkey  was  entrusted,  and  whose  interpretation 
of  his  mission  was  to  beat  the  donkey  incessantly  like  a  carpet, 
and  to  drag  it  the  other  way.  The  last  held  good  of  all  directions 
soever.  Which  the  donkey,  who  was  small,  but  by  nature  im- 
movable, requited  by  taking  absolutely  no  notice  whatever  of  his 
exertions. 

"What's  become  of  my  step-parent?  I  thought  he  was  going 
to  take  you  for  a  walk."  So  spoke  Sally  to  Dr.  Conrad  as  she 
and  her  mother  met  the  three  others,  and  the  half.  The  doctor 
replied : 

"He's  gone  for  a  walk  along  the  cliff  by  himself.  I  would 
have  gone.  .  .  ."  The  doctor  pauses  a  moment  till  the  donkey- 
chair  is  a  few  paces  ahead,  accompanied  by  Mrs.  Fenwick.  "I 
would  have  gone,  only,  you  see,  it's  just  mother's  last  day  or 
two.  .  .  ."  Sally  apprehends  perfectly.  But  he  shouldn't  have 
dropped  his  voice.  He  was  quite  distant  enough  to  be  inaudible 
by  the  Octopus  as  far  as  overhearing  words  went.  But  any  one 
can  hear  when  a  voice  is  dropped  suddenly,  and  words  are  no 
longer  audible.  Dr.  Conrad  is  a  very  poor  Machiavelli,  when  all 
is  said  and  done. 

"I  can  hear  every  word  my  boy  is  saying  to  your  girl,  Mrs. 
Fenwick."  This  is  delivered  with  exemplary  sweetness  by  the 
Octopus,  who  then  guesses  with  diabolical  acumen  at  almost  the 
exact  wording  of  her  son's  speech.  Apparently,  no  amount  of 
woollen  wraps,  no  double  thickness  of  green  veil  to  keep  the  glare 
out,  no  smoked  glasses  with  flanges  to  make  it  harmless  if  it  gets 
in,  can  obscure  the  Goody's  penetrative  powers  when  invoked  for 
the  discomfiture  of  her  kind.  "But  does  not  my  dear  boy  know," 
she  continues  gushily,  "that  I  am  always  content  to  be  alone  as 


470  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

long  as  I  can  be  sure  that  he  is  happily  employed  elsewhere.  I 
am  a  dull  old  woman,  I  know;  but,  at  least,  my  wish  is  not  to  be  a 
burden.  That  was  the  wish  of  my  great-aunt  Eliza — your  great- 
great-aunt,  Conrad;  you  never  saw  her — in  her  last  illness.  I 
borrow  her  expression — 'not  to  be  a  burden.' ';  The  Octopus, 
having  seized  her  prey  in  this  tentacle,  was  then  at  liberty  to 
enlarge  upon  the  unselfish  character  of  her  great-aunt,  reaping 
the  advantages  of  a  vicarious  egoism  from  an  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion that  that  character  was  also  her  own.  The  great-aunt  had, 
it  appeared,  lost  the  use,  broadly  speaking,  of  her  anatomy,  and 
could  only  communicate  by  signs;  but  when  she  died  she  was  none 
the  less  missed  by  her  own  circle,  whose  grief  for  her  loss  took 
the  form  pf  a  tablet.  The  speaker  paused  a  moment  for  her 
hearers  to  contemplate  the  tablet,  and  perhaps  ask  for  the  inscrip- 
tion, when  Sally  saw  an  opening,  and  took  advantage  of  it. 

"Dr.  Conrad's  going  to  be  very  selfish  this  afternoon,  Mrs. 
Vereker,  and  come  with  us  to  Chalke,  where  that  dear  little  church 
is  that  looks  like  a  barn.  I  mean  to  find  the  sexton  and  get  the 
key  this  time." 

"My  dear,  I  shall  be  perfectly  happy  knitting.  Do  not  trouble 
about  me  for  one  moment.  I  shall  think  how  you  are  enjoying 
yourselves.  When  I  was  a  girl  there  was  nothing  I  enjoyed  more 
than  ransacking  old  churches.  .  .  ." 

And  so  forth.  Rosalind  felt  almost  certain  that  Sally  either 
said  or  telegraphed  to  the  doctor,  who  was  wavering,  "You'll 
come,  you  know.  Now,  mind;  two-thirty  punc.,"  and  resolved, 
if  he  did  not  come,  to  go  to  Iggulden's  and  extract  him  from  the 
tentacles  of  his  mamma,  and  remain  entangled  herself,  if 
necessary. 

In  fact,  this  was  how  the  arrangement  for  the  afternoon  worked 
out.  Dr.  Conrad  did  not  turn  up,  as  expected,  and  Eosalind 
carried  out  her  intention.  She  rescued  the  doctor,  and  sent  him 
round  to  join  her  husband  and  Sally,  promising  to  follow  shortly 
and  catch  them  up.  The  three  started  to  walk,  but  Fenwick, 
after  a  little  slow  walking  to  allow  Rosalind  to  overtake  them,  had 
misgivings  that  she  had  got  caught,  and  went  back  to  rescue  her, 
telling  Sally  and  the  doctor  it  was  no  use  to  wait — they  would 
follow  on,  and  take  their  chance.  And  the  programme  so  indi- 
cated was  acted  on. 


CHAPTER  XLI 

OP  LOVE,  CONSIDERED  AS  A  THUNDERSTORM,  AND  OP  AGUB,  THE  SON  OP 
JAKEH  (PROV.  XXX.).  OF  A  COUNTRY  WALK  AND  A  JUDICIOUSLY 
RESTORED  CHURCH.  OF  TWO  CLASPED  HANDS,  AND  THEIR  CONSE- 
QUENCES. NOTHING  SO  VERY  REMARKABLE  AFTER  ALL! 

LOVE,  like  a  thunderstorm,  is  very  much  more  intelligible  in 
its  beginnings — to  its  chronicler,  at  least — than  it  becomes  when 
it  is,  so  to  speak,  overhead.  We  all  know  the  clear-cut  magnifi- 
cence of  the  great  thundercloud  against  the  sky,  its  tremendous 
deliberation,  its  hills  and  valleys  of  curdling  mist,  fraught  with 
God  knows  what  potential  of  destruction  in  volts  and  ohms;  the 
ceaseless  muttering  of  its  wrath  as  it  speaks  to  its  own  heart, 
and  its  sullen  secrets  reverberate  from  cavern  to  cavern  in  the 
very  core  of  its  innermost  blackness.  We  know  the  last  pris- 
matic benedictions  of  the  sun  it  means  to  hide  from  us — the 
strange  gleams  of  despairing  light  on  the  other  clouds — clouds 
that  are  not  in  it,  mere  outsiders  or  spectators.  We  can  remem- 
ber them  after  we  have  got  home  in  time  to  avoid  a  wetting,  and 
can  get  our  moist  water-colours  out  and  do  a  recollection  of  thorn 
before  they  go  out  of  our  heads — or  think  we  can. 

But  we  know,  too,  that  there  comes  a  time  of  a  sudden  wind 
and  agitated  panic  of  the  trees,  and  then  big,  warm  preliminary 
drops,  and  then  the  first  clap  of  thunder,  clear  in  its  own  mind 
and  full  of  purpose.  Then  the  first  downpour  of  rain,  that  isn't 
quite  so  clear,  and  wavers  for  a  breathing-space,  till  the  tart  re- 
minder of  the  first  swift,  decisive  lighting-flash  recalls  it  to  its 
duty,  and  it  becomes  a  steady,  intolerable  torrent  that  empties 
roads  and  streets  of  passers-by,  and  makes  the  gutters  rivulets. 
And  then  the  storm  itself — flash  upon  flash — peal  upon  peal — up 
to  the  blinding  and  deafening  climax,  glare  and  thunderbolt  in  a 
breath.  And  then  it's  overhead,  and  we  are  sure  something  has 
been  struck  that  time. 

It  was  all  plain  sailing,  two  days  since,  in  the  love-storm  we 

471 


472  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

want  the  foregoing  sketch  of  a  thunderstorm  to  illustrate,  that 
was  brewing  in  the  firmament  of  Conrad  Vereker's  soul.  At  the 
point  corresponding  to  the  first  decisive  clap  of  thunder — wher- 
ever it  was — Chaos  set  in  in  that  firmament.  And  Chaos  was 
developing  rapidly  at  the  time  when  the  doctor,  rescued  by  Sally's 
intrepidity  from  the  maternal  clutch,  started  on  what  he  believed 
would  be  his  last  walk  with  his  idol  at  St.  Sennans.  Now  he 
knew  that,  when  he  got  back  to  London,  though  there  might  be, 
academically  speaking,  opportunities  of  seeing  Sally,  it  wasn't 
going  to  be  the  same  thing.  That  was  the  phrase  his  mind  used, 
and  we  know  quite  well  what  it  meant. 

Of  course,  when  some  peevish  author  or  invalid  sends  out  a 
servant  to  make  you  take  your  organ  farther  off,  a  good  way 
down  the  street,  you  can  begin  again  exactly  where  you  left  off, 
lower  down.  But  a  barrel-organ  has  no  soul,  and  one  has  one 
oneself,  usually.  Dr.  Vereker's  soul,  on  this  occasion,  was  the 
sport  of  the  love-storm  of  our  analogy,  and  was  tossed  and  driven 
by  whirlwinds,  beaten  down  by  torrents,  dazzled  by  lightning 
and  deafened  by  thunder,  out  of  reach  of  all  sane  record  by  the 
most  eloquent  of  chroniclers.  It  was  not  in  a  state  to  accept 
calmly  the  idea  of  transference  to  Shepherd's  Bush.  A  tranquil 
mind  would  have  said,  "By  all  means,  go  home  and  start  afresh." 
But  no;  the  music  in  this  case  refused  to  welcome  the  change. 
Still,  he  would  forget  it — make  light  of  it  and  ignore  it — to  enjoy 
this  last  little  expedition  with  Sally  to  the  village  church  across 
the  downs,  that  had  been  so  sweetly  decorated  for  the  harvest 
festival.  A  bird  in  the  hand  was  worth  two  in  the  bush.  Carpe 
diem  ! 

So  Dr.  Conrad  seemed  to  have  grown  younger  than  ever  when 
he  and  Sally  got  away  from  all  the  world,  after  Fenwick  had 
fallen  back  to  rescue  the  captive,  octopus-caught.  Whereat 
Sally's  heart  rejoiced;  for  this  young  man's  state  of  subordination 
to  his  skilful  and  overwhelming  parent  was  a  constant  thorn  in 
her  side.  To  say  she  felt  for  him  is  to  say  nothing.  To  say  that 
she  would  have  jumped  out  of  her  skin  with  joy  at  hearing  that 
he  was  engaged  to  that  young  lady,  unknown;  and  that  that  young 
lady  had  successfully  made  terms  of  capitulation,  involving  the 
disbanding  of  the  Goody,  and  her  ultimate  dispersal  to  Bedford 
Park  with  a  companion — to  vouch  for  this  actually  happening 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  473 

might  be  rash.  But  Sally  told  herself — and  her  mother,  for  that 
matter — that  she  should  so  jump  out  of  her  skin;  and  you  may 
believe  her,  perhaps.  We  happen  not  to;  but  it  may  have  been 
true,  for  all  that. 

Agur,  the  son  of  Jakeh  (Prov.  xxx.),  evidently  thought  the 
souls  of  women  not  worth  analysis,  and  the  way  of  a  maid  with  a 
man  not  a  matter  for  Ithiel  and  Ucal  to  spend  time  and  thought 
over,  as  they  seem  to  have  said  nothing  to  King  Solomon  on  the 
subject.  But  then  Agur  candidly  admitted  that  he  was  more  brut- 
ish thai)  any  man,  and  had  not  the  understanding  of  a  man.  So 
he  contented  himself  with  wondering  at  the  way  of  a  man  with  a 
maid,  and  made  no  remarks  about  the  opposite  case.  Even  with 
the  understanding  of  a  man,  would  he  have  been  any  nearer  seeing 
into  the  mystery  of  a  girl's  heart?  As  for  ourselves,  we  give  it 
up.  We  have  to  be  content  with  watching  what  Miss  Sally  will 
do  next,  not  trying  to  understand  her. 

She  certainly  believed  she  believed — we  may  go  that  far — when 
she  started  to  walk  to  Chalke  Church  with  a  young  man  she  felt 
a  strong  interest  in,  and  wanted  to  see  happily  settled  in  life — 
(all  her  words,  please,  not  ours) — that  she  intended,  this  walk, 
to  get  out  of  Prosy  who  the  young  lady  was  that  he  had  hinted 
at,  and,  what  was  more,  she  knew  exactly  how  she  was  going  to 
lead  up  to  it.  Only  she  wouldn't  rush  the  matter;  it  would 
do  just  as  well,  or  better,  after  they  had  seen  the  little  church, 
and  were  walking  back  in  the  twilight.  They  could  be  jolly  and 
chatty  then.  Oh  yes,  certainly  a  good  deal  better.  As  for  any 
feeling  of  shyness  about  it,  of  relief  at  postponing  it — what 
nonsense!  Hadn't  they  as  good  as  talked  it  all  over  already? 
But,  for  our  own  part,  we  believe  that  this  readiness  to  let  the 
subject  wait  was  a  concession  Sally  made  towards  admitting  a 
personal  interest  in  the  result  of  her  inquiry — so  minute  a  one 
that  maybe  you  may  wonder  why  we  call  it  a  concession  at  all. 
Dr.  Conrad  was  perhaps  paltering  a  little  with  the  truth,  too, 
when  he  said  to  himself  that  he  was  quite  prepared  to  fulfil  his 
half-promise  to  Fenwick  and  reveal  his  mind  to  Sally;  but  not 
till  quite  the  end  of  this  walk,  in  case  he  should  spoil  it,  and  up- 
set Sally.  Or,  perhaps,  to-morrow  morning,  on  the  way  to  the 
train.  Our  own  belief  is,  he  was  frightened,  and  it  was  an  excuse. 

"We  shall  go  by  the  beech-forest,"  was  Sally's  last  speech  to 


474  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Fenwick,  as  he  turned  back  on  his  mission  of  rescue.  And 
twenty  minutes  later  she  and  Dr.  Conrad  were  crossing  the  smooth 
sheep-pasture  that  ended  at  the  boundary  of  the  said  forest — a 
tract  of  woodland  that  was  always  treated  with  derision  on  ac- 
count of  its  acreage.  It  was  small,  for  a  forest,  certainly;  but, 
then,  it  hadn't  laid  claim  to  the  name  itself.  Sally  spoke  for- 
givingly of  it  as  they  approached  it. 

"It's  a  handy  little  forest,"  said  she;  "only  you  can't  lie  down 
in  it  without  sticking  out.  If  you  don't  expect  to,  it  doesn't 
matter."  This  was  said  without  a  trace  of  a  smile,  Sally-fashion. 
It  took  its  reasonableness  for  granted,  and  allowed  the  speaker  to 
continue  without  a  pause  into  conversation  sane  and  unex- 
aggerated. 

"What  were  you  and  Jeremiah  talking  about  the  day  before 
yesterday,  when  you  went  that  long  walk?" 

"We  talked  about  a  good  many  things.     I've  forgotten  half." 

"Which  was  the  one  you  don't  want  me  to  know  about?  Be- 
cause you  haven't  forgotten  that,  you  know."  Vereker  thinks  of 
Sally's  putative  parents,  the  Arcadian  shepherdess  and  the  thun- 
derbolt. Obviously  a  reality!  Besides — so  ran  the  doctor's 
thought — with  her  looking  like  that,  what  can  I  do?  He  felt 
perfectly  helpless,  but  wouldn't  confess  it.  He  would  make  an 
effort.  One  thing  he  was  certain  of:  that  evasion,  with  those 
eyes  looking  at  him,  would  mean  instant  shipwreck. 

"We  had  a  long  talk,  dear  Miss  Sally,  about  how  much  Jere- 
miah"— a  slight  accent  on  the  name  has  the  force  of  inverted 
commas  in  text — "can  really  recollect  of  his  own  history."  But 
Sally's  reply  takes  a  form  of  protest,  without  seeming  warranty. 

"I  say,  Dr.  Conrad,  I  wish  you  wouldn't.  .  .  .  However, 
never  mind  that  now.  I  want  to  know  about  Jeremiah.  Has 
he  remembered  a  lot  more,  and  not  told?" 

"He  goes  on  recovering  imperfect  versions  of  things.  He 
told  me  a  good  many  such  yesterday — so  imperfect  that  I  am  con- 
vinced as  his  mind  clears  he  will  find  that  some  of  them,  though 
founded  on  reality,  are  little  better  than  dreams.  He  can't  rely 
on  them  himself.  .  .  .  But  what  is  it  you  wish  I  wouldn't?" 

"Oh,  nothing! — I'll  tell  you  after.  Never  mind  that  now. 
What  are  the  things — I  mean,  the  things  he  recovers  the 
imperfect  versions  of?  You  needn't  tell  me  the  versions,  you 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  475 

know,  but  you  might  tell  me  what  they  were  versions  of,  without 
any  breach  of  confidence."  Dr.  Conrad  has  not  time  for  more 
than  a  word  or  two  towards  the  obvious  protest  against  this  way 
of  stating  the  case,  before  Sally  becomes  frankly  aware  of  her  own 
unfairness.  "No,  I  won't  worm  out  and  inquisit,"  she  says — 
and  we  are  bound  to  give  her  exact  language.  "It  isn't  fair  on  a 
general  practitioner  to  take  him  for  a  walk  and  get  at  his  pro- 
fessional secrets."  The  merry  eyebrows  and  the  pearly  teeth, 
slightly  in  abeyance  for  a  serious  moment  or  two,  are  all  in 
evidence  again  as  the  black  eyes  flash  round  on  the  doctor,  and, 
as  it  were,  convey  his  reprieve  to  him.  He  acknowledges  it  in 
this  sense. 

"I'm  glad  you  don't  insist  upon  my  telling,  Miss  Sally.  If 
you  had  insisted,  I  should  have  had  to  tell."  He  paused  a  second, 
drawing  an  inference  from  an  expression  of  Sally's  face,  then 
added:  "Well,  it's  true.  .  .  ." 

"I  wasn't  thinking  of  that."  This  refers  to  her  intention  to 
say  something-,  which  never  fructified;  but  somehow  got  com- 
municated, magnetically  perhaps,  to  Dr.  Conrad.  "Never  mind 
what,  now.  Because  if  your  soles  are  as  slippy  as  mine  are,  we 
shall  never  get  up.  Catch  hold  I" 

This  last  refers  to  the  necessity  two  travellers  are  under,  who, 
having  to  ascend  a  steep  escarpment  of  slippery  grass,  can  only 
do  so  by  mutual  assistance.  Sally  and  the  doctor  got  to  the  top, 
and  settled  down  to  normal  progress  on  a  practicable  gradient, 
and  all  the  exhilaration  of  the  wide,  wind-swept  downland.  But 
what  had  been  to  the  unconscious  merpussy  nothing  but  a  mutual 
accommodation  imposed  by  a  common  lot— common  subjection 
to  the  forces  of  gravitation  and  the  extinction  of  friction  by  the 
reaction  of  short  grass  on  leather — had  been  to  her  companion  a 
phase  of  stimulus  to  the  storm  that  was  devastating  the  region 
of  his  soul;  a  new  and  prolonged  peal  of  thunder  swift  on  the 
heels  of  a  blinding  lightning-flash,  and  a  deluge  to  follow  such  as 
a  real  storm  makes  us  run  to  shelter  from.  On  Dr.  Conrad's  side 
of  the  analogy,  there  was  no  shelter,  and  he  didn't  ask  for  it. 
Had  he  asked  for  anything,  it  would  have  been  for  the  power  to 
tell  Sally  what  she  had  become  to  him,  and  a  new  language  he  did 
not  now  know  in  which  to  tell  it.  And  such  a  vocabulary! 

But  Dr.  Conrad  didn't  know  how  simple  the  language  was  that 


476  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

he  felt  the  want  of — least  of  all,  that  there  was  only  one  word  in 
its  vocabulary.  And  when  the  two  of  them  got  to  the  top  of  their 
slippery  precipice,,  breathless,  he  was  no  nearer  the  disclosure  he 
had  made  up  his  mind  to,  and  as  good  as  promised  Fenwick  to 
make,  than  when  they  were  treading  the  beechmast  and  listening 
to  the  wood-doves  in  the  handy  little  forest  they  had  left  below. 
But  oh,  the  little  things  in  this  life  that  are  the  big  ones  all  the 
while,  and  no  one  ever  suspects  them! 

A  very  little  thing  indeed  was  to  play  a  big  part,  unacknowl- 
edged till  after,  in  the  story  of  this  walk.  For  it  chanced  that 
as  they  reached  the  hill-top  the  diminution  of  the  incline  was  so 
gradual  that  at  no  exact  point  could  the  lease  of  Sally's  hand  to 
that  of  the  doctor  he  determined  by  either  landlord  or  tenant. 
We  do  not  mean  that  he  refused  to  let  go,  nor  that  Sally  con- 
sciously said  to  herself  that  it  would  be  rude  to  snatch  back  the 
gloveless  six-and-a-half  that  she  had  entrusted  to  him,  the  very 
minute  she  didn't  want  his  assistance.  It  was  a  nuance  of  action 
or  demeanour  far,  far  finer  than  that  on  the  part  of  either.  But 
it  was  real  all  the  same.  And  the  facts  of  the  case  were  as  clear 
to  Sally's  subconsciousness,  unadmitted  and  unconfessed,  as 
though  Dr.  Conrad  had  found  his  voice  then  and  there,  and  said 
out  boldly:  "There  is  no  young  lady  I  am  wavering  about  except 
it  be  you;  she's  a  fiction,  and  a  silly  one.  There  is  no  one  in 
the  world  I  care  for  as  I  do  for  you.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
world  that  I  can  name  or  dream  of  so  precious  to  me  as  this  hand 
that  I  now  give  up  with  reluctance,  under  the  delusion  that  I 
have  not  held  it  long  enough  to  make  you  guess  the  whole  of  the 
story."  All  that  was  said,  but  what  an  insignificant  little  thing 
it  was  that  said  it! 

As  for  Miss  Sally,  it  was  only  her  subself  that  recognised  that 
any  one  had  said  anything  at  all.  Her  superself  dismissed  it  as 
a  fancy;  and,  therefore,  being  put  on  its  mettle  to  justify  that 
action,  it  pointed  out  to  her  that,  after  that,  it  would  be  the 
merest  cowardice  to  shirk  finding  out  about  Dr.  Conrad's  young 
lady.  She  would  manage  it  somehow  by  the  end  of  this  walk. 
But  still  an  element  of  postponement  came  in,  and  had  its  say. 
Yet  it  excited  no  suspicions  in  her  mind,  or  she  ignored  them. 
She  was  quite  within  her  rights,  technically,  in  doing  so. 

It  was  necessary,  though,  to  tide  over  the  momentary  reciprocity 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  477 

— the  slight  exchange  of  consciousnesses  that,  if  indulged,  must 
have  ended  in  a  climax — with  a  show  of  stiffness;  a  little  pretence 
that  we  were  a  lady  and  gentleman  taking  a  walk,  otherwise  un- 
described.  When  the  doctor  relinquished  Sally's  hand,  he  felt 
bound  to  ignore  the  fact  that  hers  went  on  ringing  like  a  bell  in 
the  palm  of  his,  and  sending  musical  messages  up  his  arm;  and 
to  talk  about  dewponds.  They  occur  on  the  tops  of  downs,  and 
are  very  scientific.  High  service  and  no  rate  are  the  terms  of 
their  water-supply.  Dr.  Conrad  knew  all  about  them,  and  was 
aware  that  one  they  passed  was  also  a  relic  of  prehistoric  man, 
who  had  dug  it,  and  didn't  live  long  enough,  poor  fellow!  to 
know  it  was  a  dewpond,  or  prehistoric.  Sally  was  interested.  A 
little  bird  with  very  long  legs  didn't  seem  to  care,  and  walked 
away  without  undue  hurry,  but  amazingly  quickly,  for  all  that. 

"What  a  little  darling!"  Sally  said.  "Did  you  hear  that 
delicious  little  noise  he  made?  Isn't  he  a  water-ouzel?"  Sally 
took  the  first  name  that  she  thought  sounded  probable.  She 
really  was  making  talk,  to  contribute  her  share  to  the  fiction  about 
the  lady  and  gentleman.  So  was  her  companion.  He  reflected 
for  a  moment  whether  he  could  say  anything  about  Gralke  and 
Scolopacidae,  or  such  like,  but  decided  against  heaping  up  instruc- 
tive matter  on  the  top  of  the  recent  dewponds.  He  gave  it  up, 
and  harked  back  quite  suddenly  to  congenial  personalities. 

"What  was  it  you  wished  I  wouldn't,  Miss  Sally?" 

Our  Sally  had  it  on  her  lips  to  say,  "Why,  do  that — call  me 
Miss  Sally,  of  course!  I  can't  tell  you  how  I  hate  it."  But, 
this  time,  she  was  seized  with  a  sudden  fit  of  shyness.  She  could 
have  said  it  quite  easily  before  that  trivial  hand-occurrence,  and 
the  momentary  stiffness  that  followed  it.  Now  she  backed  out 
in  the  meanest  way,  and  even  sought  to  fortify  the  lady  and 
gentleman  pretext.  She  looked  back  over  the  panorama  they 
were  leaving  behind,  and  discerned  that  that  was  Jeremiah  and 
her  maternal  parent  coming  through  the  clover-field.  But  it 
wasn't,  palpably.  Nevertheless,  Sally  held  tight  to  her  ground- 
less opinion  long  enough  for  the  previous  question  to  be  droppable, 
without  effrontery.  Then  her  incorrigible  candour  bubbled  up, 
and  she  refused  to  take  advantage  of  her  own  subterfuge. 

"Never  mind,  Dr.  Conrad;  I'll  tell  you  presently.  I've  a  bone 
to  pick  with  you.  Wait  till  we've  seen  the  little  churchy-wurchy 


478  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

— there  it  is,  over  there,  with  a  big  weathercock — and  then  we  can 
quarrel  and  go  home  separate." 

Even  Agur,  the  son  of  Jakeh,  would  have  seen,  at  this  point, 
the  way  that  this  particular  maid,  in  addressing  this  particular 
man,  was  exaggerating  a  certain  spirit  of  bravado;  and  if  he  had 
been  accompanying  them  unseen  from  St.  Sennans,  would  cer- 
tainly have  deserved  his  own  self-censure  if  he  had  failed  to  trace 
this  spirit  to  its  source — the  hand-incident.  We  believe  it  was 
only  affectation  in  Agur,  and  that  he  knew  all  about  the  subject, 
men,  maids,  and  every  other  sort;  only  he  didn't  think  any  of  the 
female  sorts  worth  his  Oriental  consideration.  It  was  a  far  cry 
to  the  dawn  of  Browning  in  those  days. 

Down  the  hill  to  the  flatlands  was  a  steep  pathway,  where  talk 
paused  naturally.  When  you  travel  in  single  file  on  a  narrow 
footway  with  a  grass  slide  to  right  or  left  of  you,  which  it  does 
not  do  to  tread  on  with  shoe-soles  well  polished  on  two  miles  of 
previous  grass,  you  don't  talk — especially  if  you  have  come  to 
some  point  in  talk  where  silence  is  not  unwelcome.  Sally  and 
the  doctor  said  scarcely  a  dozen  words  on  the  way  down  to  the 
little  village  that  owned  the  name  and  the  church  of  Chalke. 
When  they  arrived  in  its  seclusion  they  found,  for  purposes  of 
information  and  reference,  no  human  creatures  visible  except 
some  absolutely  brown,  white-haired  ones  whose  existence  dated 
back  only  a  very  few  years — not  enough  to  learn  English  in.  So, 
when  addressed,  they  remained  a  speechless  group,  too  unaccus- 
tomed to  man  to  be  able  to  say  where  keys  of  churches  were  to 
be  had,  or  anything  else.  But  the  eldest,  a  very  little  girl  in  a 
flexible  blue  bonnet,  murmured  what  Sally,  with  insight,  inter- 
preted into  a  reference. 

"Yes,  dear,  that's  right.  You  go  and  tell  moarther  t'  whoam 
that  a  lady  and  gentleman  want  to  see  inside  the  church,  and 
ask  for  the  key."  Whereupon  the  little  maid  departs  down  a 
passage  into  a  smell  of  wallflowers,  and  is  heard  afar  rendering 
her  message  as  a  long  narrative — so  long  that  Dr.  Conrad  says 
the  child  cannot  have  understood  right,  and  they  had  better 
prosecute  inquiry  further.  Sally  thinks  otherwise,  and  says  men 
are  impatient  fidgets. 

The  resolute  dumbness  of  one  of  the  small  natives  must  have 
been  a  parti-pris,  for  it  suddenly  disappeared  during  his  sister's 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  479 

absence,  and  he  gave  a  narrative  of  a  family  dissension,  not  neces- 
sarily recent.  He  appears  proud  of  his  own  share  in  it,  which 
Sally  nevertheless  felt  she  could  not  appear  to  sanction  by  silence. 

"You  bad  little  boy/'  she  said.  "You  smacked  your  sister 
Elizabeth  in  t'  oy,  and  your  foarther  smacked  you.  I  hope  he 
hurt."  The  bad  little  boy  assented  with  a  nod,  and  supplied 
some  further  details.  Then  he  asked  for  a  penny  before  his  sister 
Elizabeth  came  back.  He  wanted  it  to  buy  almond-rock,  but  he 
wouldn't  give  any  of  it  to  Jacob,  nor  to  his  sister  Elizabeth,  nor 
to  Eeuben,  nor  to  many  others,  whom  he  seemed  to  exclude  from 
almond-rock  with  rapture.  Asked  to  whom  he  would  give  some, 
then,  he  replied:  "Not  you — eat  it  moyself!"  and  laughed  heart- 
lessly. Sally,  we  regret  to  say,  gave  this  selfish  little  boy  a  penny 
for  not  being  hypocritical.  And  then  his  sister  Elizabeth  re- 
appeared with  the  key,  which  was  out  of  scale  with  her,  like  St. 
Peter's. 

The  inward  splendours  of  this  church  had  been  inferred  by 
Sally  from  a  tiptoe  view  through  the  window,  which  commanded 
its  only  archaic  object  of  interest — the  monument  of  a  wool- 
stapler  who,  three  hundred  and  odd  years  ago,  had  the  effrontery 
to  have  two  wives  and  sixteen  children.  He  ought  to  have  had 
one  or  two  more  wives,  thought  Dr.  Conrad.  However,  the 
family  was  an  impressive  one  now,  decorated  as  it  was  with  roses 
cut  out  of  turnips,  and  groups  of  apples  and  carrots  and  cereals. 
And  no  family  could  have  kneeled  down  more  symmetrically,  even 
in  1580. 

But  there  was  plenty  to  see  in  that  church,  too.  Indeed,  it 
was  for  all  the  world  like  the  advertisement  sheets  of  Architec- 
tonic Ecclesiology  (ask  for  this  paper  at  your  club),  and  every 
window  was  brim  full  of  new  stained  glass,  and  every  inch  of 
floor-space  was  new  encaustic  tiles.  And,  what  was  more,  there 
was  a  new  mosaic  over  the  chancel-arch — a  modest  and  wobbly 
little  arch  in  itself,  that  seemed  afflicted  with  its  position,  and 
to  want  to  get  away  into  a  quiet  corner  and  meditate.  Sally  said 
so,  and  added  so  should  she,  if  she  were  it. 

"I  wonder  if  the  woolstapler  was  married  here  to  one  or  other 
of  the  little  square  women,"  said  she. 

"I  wonder  why  the  angels  up  there  look  so  sulky,"  said  Dr. 
Conrad.  And  then  Sally,  who  seemed  absent-minded,  found 


480  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

something  else  to  wonder  about — a  certain  musical  whistling 
noise  that  filled  the  little  church.  But  it  was  only  a  big  bunch  of 
moonwort  on  a  stained-glass-window  sill,  and  the  wind  was  blow- 
ing through  a  vacancy  that  should  have  been  a  date,  and  making 
^olian  music.  The  little  maid  with  the  key  found  her  voice 
over  this  suddenly.  Her  bruvver  had  done  that,  she  said  with 
pride.  He  had  oyined  a  stoo-an  when  it  was  putten  up,  and 
brokken  t'  glass.  So  that  stained  glass  was  very  new  indeed, 
evidently. 

"I  wonder  why  they  call  that  stuff  ^honesty,'  Miss  Sally  ?"  said 
the  doctor.  Sally,  feeling  that  the  interest  of  either  in  the 
church  was  really  perfunctory,  said  vaguely — did  they?  And 
then,  recoiling  from  further  wonderment,  and,  indeed,  feeling 
some  terror  of  becoming  idiotic  if  this  sort  of  thing  went  on  much 
longer,  she  exclaimed,  with  reality  in  her  voice:  "Because  it's  not 
pretending  to  take  an  interest  when  it  doesn't,  like  us.  But  I 
wish  you  wouldn't,  Dr.  Conrad ;  I  do  hate  it  so." 

"Hate  what?  Taking  an  interest  or  calling  it  honesty?  I 
didn't  call  it  honesty.  They  did,  whoever  they  are!" 

"No,  no — I  don't  mean  that.  Never  mind.  I'll  tell  you  when 
we're  out.  Come  along — that  is,  if  you've  seen  enough  of  the 
tidy  mosaic  and  the  tidy  stained  glass,  and  the  tidy  nosegays  on 
the  tidy  table."  The  doctor  came  along — seemed  well  satisfied 
to  do  so.  But  this  was  the  third  time  Sally  had  wished  that  Dr. 
Conrad  wouldn't,  and  this  time  she  felt  she  must  explain.  She 
wasn't  at  all  sure  that  the  name  of  that  herb  hadn't  somehow  got 
into  the  atmosphere — caught  on,  as  it  were,  and  twitted  her. 
After  all,  why  shouldn't  she  speak  a  plain  thought  to  an  old 
friend,  as  poor  Prosy  was  now?  Who  could  gainsay  it?  More- 
over— now,  surely  this  was  an  inspiration — why  shouldn't  she 
kill  two  birds  with  one  stone,  and  work  in  her  inquiry  about  the 
other  young  lady  with  this  plain  thought  that  was  on  her  tongue 
to  speak? 

The  sun  was  a  sheer  blaze  of  golden  light  as  they  stepped  out 
of  the  little  church  into  its  farewell  efforts  on  behalf  of  the  hill- 
shadowed  land  of  premature  sunsets,  and  the  merpussy  looked 
her  best  in  its  effulgence.  Sally's  good  looks  had  never  been 
such  as  to  convince  her  she  was  a  beauty;  and  we  suppose  she 
wasn't,  critically  speaking.  But  youth  and  health,  and  an 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  481 

arrow-straight  bearing,  and  a  flawless  complexion,  in  a  flood  of 
evening  light,  make  a  bold  bid  for  beauty  even  in  the  eyes  of 
others  than  young  men  already  half-imbecile  with  love.  Sally's 
was,  at  any  rate,  enough  to  dumbfounder  the  little  janitress  with 
the  key,  who  stood  at  gaze  with  violet  eyes  in  her  sunbrowned  face 
in  the  shadow,  looking  as  though  for  certain  they  would  never 
close  again;  while,  as  for  Dr.  Conrad,  he  was  too  far  gone  to 
want  a  finishing  touch,  and  if  he  had  been,  the  faintest  animation 
of  an  extra  flush  due  to  embarrassment  at  what  she  was  meaning 
to  say  would  have  done  the  business  for  him.  What  could  he  do 
but  wonder  and  idolize,  even  while  he  almost  flinched  before 
his  idol;  and  wait  to  know  what  it  was  she  wished  he  wouldn't? 
What  was  there  in  earth  or  heaven  he  would  not,  if  Sally  wished 
it? 

"Dr.  Conrad,  I'm  sure  you  must  know  what  I  mean.  I  do  so 
hate  being  called  'Miss  Sally/  Do  make  it  'Sally/  and  have  done 
with  it." 

The  breezy  freshness  of  her  spontaneous  ease  was  infectious, 
and  the  shy  man's  answering  laugh  showed  how  it  had  caught  his 
soul.  "Is  that  all?"  says  he.  "That's  soon  done— Sally!  You 
know,  I  do  call  you  Sally  when  I  speak  to  your  mother  and  .  .  ." 

"Now,  do  say  father.  You've  no  idea  how  I  like  it  when  people 
call  Jeremiah  my  father,  instead  of  step." 

"Well — father,  then.  I  mean,  they  said  call  you  Sally;  so  of 
course  I  do.  But  speaking  to  you — -don't  you  see?  .  .  ."  The 
doctor  hesitates — doesn't  actually  blush,  perhaps.  A  slight  pause 
in  the  conversation  eases  off  the  context.  The  little  maiden  has 
to  lock  up  the  church-door  with  the  big  key,  and  to  receive  six- 
pence and  a  kiss  from  Sally.  The  violet  eyes  follow  the  lady  and 
gentleman,  fixed  in  wonderment,  as  they  move  off  towards  the 
hill,  and  the  last  glint  of  the  sun  vanishes.  Then  Sally  goes  on 
where  they  left  off: 

"No,  I  don't  see.  Speaking  to  me,  what?  Be  an  explicit  lit- 
tle general  practitioner,  or  we  shall  quarrel,  after  all,  and  go 
home  different  ways." 

"Well,  look  here!  You  know  Bailey,  the  young  man  that 
drives  me  round  in  London?" 

"Yes.     How  does  he  come  in?" 

"Why,  just  this  way;  I've  known  the  youth  for  years,  and  the 


482  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

other  day  if  it  doesn't  turn  out  that  he's  been  married  ever  so 
long!  And  when  I  taxed  him  with  needless  secrecy  and  mistrust 
of  an  old  friend,  what  does  the  young  humbug  say?  'The  fact 
is,  sir,  I  hadn't  the  cheek  to  tell  you.'  Well,  I  was  like  that.  I 
hadn't  the  cheek." 

"At  any  rate,  you  have  the  grace  to  call  him  a  young  humbug. 
I'm  glad  you're  repentant,  Dr.  Conrad." 

"Come — I  say,  now — Sally!     That's  not  fair." 

"What's  not  fair?" 

"Sauce  for  the  goose  is  sauce  for  the  gander.  You  called  me 
<Dr.  Conrad.' " 

"We-ell,  I  don't  see  anything  in  that.  Of  course,  it's  quite  a 
different  thing — you  and  me." 

"Very  well,  then.     I  shall  say  Miss  Sally.     Miss  Sally!" 

Here  was  Sally's  opportunity,  clear  enough.  She  had  never 
had  a  chance  till  now  of  bringing  back  the  mysterious  young  lady 
of  the  jetty-interview  into  court,  and  examining  her.  She  felt 
quite  sure  of  herself  and  her  powers  of  conducting  the  case — 
and  she  was  mistaken.  She  knew  nothing  of  the  traps  and  pit- 
falls that  were  gaping  for  her.  Her  opening  statement  went 
easily  though;  it  was  all  prepared. 

"Don't  you  see,  Dr.  Conrad  dear,  the  cases  are  quite  different? 
When  you're  married,  your  wife  will  call  me  Sally,  of  course. 
But  .  .  .  well,  if  I  had  a  husband,  you  know,  he  would  call  you 
Dr.  Vereker.  Sure  to!"  Sally  felt  satisfied  with  the  sound  of 
her  voice.  But  the  doctor  said  never  a  word,  and  his  face  was 
grave.  She  would  have  to  go  on,  unassisted,  and  she  had  in- 
vented nothing  to  say,  so  far.  So  a  wavering  crept  in — nothing 
in  itself  at  first,  apart  from  her  consciousness  of  it.  "Besides, 
though,  of  course  she  would  call  me  Sally,  she  mightn't  quite — 
not  altogether,  you  know — I  mean,  she  might  think  it  .  .  ." 
But  ambushes  revealed  themselves  in  every  hedge,  ready  to  break 
out  if  she  ended  this  sentence.  Dr.  Conrad  made  completion 
unnecessary. 

"Whom  do  you  mean  by  she,  Sally?" 

"Why,  of  course!  Who  could  I  mean  but  the  girl  you  told  me 
about  that  you  think  wouldn't  agree  with  your  mother?" 

"I  thought  so.  See  what  a  mess  I  made  of  it!  No,  Sally, 
there's  no  such  person.  Now  I  shall  have  to  speak  the  truth,  and 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  483 

then  I  shall  have  to  go  away  from  you,  and  it  will  all  be 
spoiled.  .  .  ."  But  Sally  interposes  on  the  tense  speech,  and 
sound  of  growing  determination  in  the  doctor's  voice: 

"Oh  no,  don't — no,  don't!  Don't  say  anything  that  will 
change  it  from  now.  See  how  happy  we  are!  How  could  it  be 
better?  I'll  call  you  Conrad,  or  anything  you  like.  Only,  don't 
make  it  different." 

"Very  well,  I  won't.  I  promise!"  The  doctor  calms  down. 
"But,  Sally  dearest — I  may  say  Sally  dearest,  mayn't  I?  ..." 

"Well,  perhaps.     Only  you  must  make  that  do  for  the  present." 

But  there  is  a  haunting  sense  of  the  Octopus  in  the  conscien- 
tious soul  of  her  son,  and  even  though  he  is  allowed  to  say  "Sally 
dearest,"  the  burden  is  on  him  of  knowing  that  he  has  been  swept 
away  in  the  turmoil  of  this  whirlwind  of  self,  and  he  is  feeling 
round  to  say  peccavi,  and  make  amends  by  confession.  He  makes 
"Sally  dearest"  do  for  the  moment,  but  captures  as  a  set-off  the 
hand  that  slips  readily  enough  into  the  arm  he  offers  for  it,  with  a 
caressing  other  hand,  before  he  speaks  again.  He  renews  his 
promise — but  with  such  a  compensation  in  the  hand  that  remains 
at  rest  in  his!  and  then  continues: 

"Dearest  Sally,  I  dare  say  you  see  how  it  was — about  mother. 
It  was  very  stupid  of  me,  and  I  did  it  very  badly.  I  got  puzzled, 
and  lost  my  head." 

"I  thought  it  was  a  real  young  lady,  anyhow." 

"I  saw  you  did.  And  I  do  think — just  now — I  should  have 
let  you  continue  believing  in  the  real  young  lady  .  .  .  only  when 
you  said  that  .  .  ." 

"Said  what?" 

"Said  that  about  your  husband,  and  calling  me  Conrad.  I 
couldn't  stand  it.  It  was  just  like  a  knife  .  .  .  no,  I'm  in 
earnest,  it  was.  How  could  I  have  borne  it — gone  on  at  all — 
with  you  married  to  any  one  else?"  He  asks  this  in  a  tone  of 
serious  conviction,  of  one  who  is  diagnosing  a  strange  case,  con- 
scientiously. Sally  declines  consultation — won't  be  too  serious 
over  it. 

"You  would  have  had  to.  Men  get  on  capitally  when  they 
have  to.  But  very  likely  I  won't  marry  you.  Don't  be  too  sure! 
I  haven't  committed  myself,  you  know."  Nevertheless,  the  hp.nd 
remains  passive  in  the  doctor's,  as  he  continues  his  diagnosis: 


484  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"I  shouldn't  deserve  you.     But,  then,  who  could?" 

Sally  tacitly  refuses  to  help  in  answering  this  question. 

"I  vote  for  neither  of  us  marrying  anybody  else,  but  going  on 
like  now,"  says  she  thoughtfully. 

Sally,  you  see,  was  recovering  herself  after  a  momentary  alarm, 
produced  by  the  gust  of  resolution  on  Dr.  Conrad's  part.  She 
had  shut  her  window  on  the  storm  in  his  soul,  and  felt  safe  in 
resuming  her  identity.  All  through  this  walk,  ever  since  the 
hand-incident,  she  had  been  hard  at  work  ignoring  suggestions  of 
her  inner  mind  that  her  companion  was  a  loaded  gun,  and  not 
quite  safe  to  play  with.  Now  she  felt  she  had  established  a  sort 
of  modus  vivendi  which  would  not  involve  her  in  the  horrors  of  a 
formal  engagement,  with  the  concomitants  of  dissension  and 
bitterness  that  she  had  noticed  in  friends'  families  on  such  oc- 
casions. Why  shouldn't  she  and  poor  Prosy  walk  about  together 
as  much  as  they  liked — yes,  even  call  in  at  a  church  and  get 
married  if  they  liked — and  have  no  one  else  fussing  over  them? 
The  sort  of  semi-trothplight  she  had  just  hushed  into  silence 
would  do  for  a  good  long  time  to  come,  because  she  understood 
Prosy  down  to  the  ground,  and,  of  course,  she  knew  that  his 
mistrusting  her  was  out  of  the  question. 

As  for  the  doctor,  his  was  the  sort  of  temperament  one  often 
meets  with  in  very  fair  men  of  his  type — intensely  shy,  but  with 
a  backing  of  resolution  on  occasion  shown,  bred  of  a  capacity  for 
high-strung  passion.  He  had  formed  his  intention  fully  and 
clearly  of  telling  Sally  the  whole  truth  before  they  arrived  at  St. 
Sennans  that  evening,  and  had  been  hastened  to  what  was  virtu- 
ally an  avowal  by  a  premature  accident,  as  we  have  seen.  Now 
the  murder  was  out,  and  he  was  walking  home  slowly  beside  the 
marvel,  the  mystery,  that  had  taken  possession  of  the  inmost 
recesses  of  his  life — very  much  in  her  pocket,  if  the  truth  must  be 
told — with  an  almost  intolerable  searching  fire  of  joy  finding 
every  moment  a  new  untouched  recess  in  his  innermost  heart. 
He  could  have  fallen  at  her  feet  and  kissed  them,  could  have 
poured  out  his  very  soul  in  passionate  protestations,  could  and 
would  have  done  anything  that  would  have  given  a  moment's 
respite  to  the  tension  of  his  love  for  this  all-absorbing  other 
creature  that  was  absolutely  here — a  reality,  and  no  dream — be- 
side him.  But  he  was  going  to  be  good,  at  her  bidding,  and  re- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  485 

main  a  sane  and  reasonable  general  practitioner,  however  much 
his  heart  beat  and  his  head  swam.  Poor  Prosy! 

No!  On  consideration,  Agur,  the  son  of  Jakeh,  didn't  know 
all  about  it.  He  only  knew  the  Oriental  temperament.  He  was 
quite  up  to  date,  no  doubt,  but  neither  he  nor  Ithiel  nor  Ucal  nor 
King  Solomon  could  reckon  with  spiritual  volcanoes.  Probably 
nothing  in  the  world  could  have  explained  to  either  of  them  the 
meaning  of  one  or  two  bits  of  music  Schubert  wrote  on  this  subject 
of  Love — we  don't  flinch  from  our  phraseology;  we  know  that  all 
will  understand  it  whom  we  care  should  do  so.  By-the-bye,  Dr. 
Vereker  was  partly  German,  and  a  musician.  Agur  can  have 
had  no  experience  of  either.  The  ancestors  of  Schubert  and 
Beethoven  were  splendid  savages  in  his  day,  sleeping  on  the 
snow-wreaths  in  the  forests  of  the  north;  and  somewhere  among 
them  there  was  a  germ  of  a  love-passion  that  was  one  day  to  ring 
changes  on  the  peals  that  were  known  to  Agur,  the  son  of  Jakeh. 

But  this  is  wandering  from  the  point,  and  all  the  while  Sally 
and  her  lover  have  been  climbing  that  hill  again,  and  are  now 
walking  over  the  lonely  down  above,  towards  the  sun,  and  their 
shadows  are  long  behind  them — at  least,  their  shadow;  for  they 
have  but  one,  and  we  fancy  we  have  let  some  of  our  record  slip, 
for  the  man's  arm  is  round  the  girl's  waist.  Yes,  some  further 
clearer  understanding  has  come  into  their  lives,  and  maybe  Sally 
sees  by  now  that  the  vote  she  passed  nem.  con.  may  be  rescinded 
in  the  end. 

If  you  had  been  near  them  then,  invisible,  we  know  you  would 
not  have  gone  close  and  listened.  You  would  have  been  too 
honourable.  But  you  would  only  have  heard  this — take  our 
word  for  it! 

"Do  you  know  what  I  always  call  you  behind  your  back?  I 
always  call  you  Prosy.  I  don't  know  why." 

"Because  I  am  prosy — level-headed,  slow  sort  of  card — but 
prosy  beyond  a  doubt." 

"No,  you're  not.  I  don't  think  you  know  the  least  what  you're 
like.  But  I  shall  call  you  Prosy,  all  the  same,  or  whatever  I 
choose!" 

"You  don't  take  to  Conrad,  somehow?" 

"It  sounds  so  reproachful.     It's  like  William." 

"Does  William  sound  reproachful?" 


486  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Of  course  it  does!  Willy-yum!  A  most  reproachful  name. 
No,  Prosy  dear,  I  shall  call  you  Prosy,  whatever  the  consequences 
may  be.  People  must  put  their  own  construction  upon  it." 

"Mother  calls  me  Conny  very  often." 

"When  she's  not  taking  exception  to  you  .  .  .  oh,  no!  I 
know.  I  was  only  joking  .  .  .  there,  then!  we  won't  quarrel 
and  go  home  opposite  wavs  about  that.  Besides,  I'm  the  young 
lady " 

"Oh,  Sally  darling,  dearest,  it  does  make  me  feel  such  a  fool. 
Please  don't!" 

"Stuff  and  nonsense,  Prosy  dear!  I  shall,  if  I  choose.  So 
there!  .  .  .  No,  but  seriously — why  did  you  think  I  shouldn't 
get  on  well  with  your  mother?"  Poor  Prosy  looks  very  much 
embarrassed  at  this  point;  his  countenance  pleads  for  respite. 
But  Sally  won't  let  him  off.  And  he  is  as  wax  in  her  hands,  and 
she  knows  it,  and  also  that  every  word  that  passes  her  coral  lips 
seems  to  the  poor  stricken  man  a  pearl  of  wisdom.  And  she  is 
girl  enough  to  enjoy  her  power,  is  Sally. 

"Why  do  you  think  I  shan't  get  on  with  her?"  Note  the  slight 
variation  in  the  question,  driving  the  nail  home,  leaving  no  es- 
cape. The  doctor's  manner  in  reply  is  that  of  one  who  appeals 
to  Truth  herself  to  help  him,  before  a  court  that  acknowledges  no 
other  jurisdiction. 

"Because  ...  I  must  say  it  because  it's  true,  only  it  seems 
so  ...  so  disloyal,  you  might  say,  to  mother.  .  .  ." 

"Well!     Because  what?" 

"Because  then  it  won't  be  the  same  as  your  mother.  It  can't 
be." 

"Why  not?" 

"Oh,  Sally — dearest  love — how  can  it?" 

"Well!  Perhaps  why  not  was  fibs.  And,  of  course,  mother's 
an  angel,  so  it's  not  fair.  But,  Prosy  dear,  I'll  tell  you  one  thing 
I  do  think — that  affectionate  sons  make  very  bad  medical  at- 
tencjants  for  their  ma's;  and  I  should  say  the  same  if  they  had 
all  the  degrees  in  Christendom." 

"You  think  a  nervous  element  comes  in  ?  .  .  ." 

And  so  the  conversation  ripples  on,  a  quiet  undertone  of  per- 
fect confidence,  freedom  without  reserve  as  to  another  self,  sud- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  487 

denly  discovered  in  the  working  identity  of  a  fellow-creature.  It 
ripples  on  just  thus,  all  the  distance  of  the  walk  along  the  top- 
most down,  in  the  evening  sunlight,  and  then  comes  a  pause  to 
negotiate  the  descent  to  their  handy  little  forest  below.  Then 
a  sense  that  they  are  coming  hack  into  a  sane,  dry  world,  and 
must  be  a  lady  and  a  gentleman  again.  But  there  must  be  a 
little  farewell  to  the  enchanted  land  they  are  leaving  behind — a 
recognition  of  its  story,  under  the  beech-trees  as  the  last  gleam 
goes,  and  leaves  us  our  inheritance  of  twilight. 

"Do  ypu  remember,  darling^  how  we  climbed  up  there,  coming, 
and  had  hold  to  the  top?"  His  lips  find  hers,  naturally  and 
without  disguise.  It  is  the  close  of  the  movement,  and  company- 
manners  will  be  wanted  directly.  But  just  a  bar  or  two,  and  a 
space,  before  the  music  dies!  .  .  . 

"I  remember,"  says  Sally.  "That  began  it.  Oh,  what  a  long 
time  ago  that  does  seem  now!  What  a  rum  start  it  all  is— the 
whole  turn-out!"  For  the  merpussy  is  her  incorrigible  self,  and 
will  be  to  the  last. 

When  Sally  reached  home,  very  late,  she  was  not  displeased, 
though  she  was  a  little  surprised,  to  find  that  Mrs.  Lobjoit  was 
keeping  dinner  back,  and  that  her  mother  and  Fenwick  had  not 
reappeared,  having  been  away  since  they  parted.  Not  displeased, 
because  it  gave  her  time  to  settle  down — the  expression  she  made 
use  of,  to  think  with;  not  with  any  admission,  however,  that  she 
either  felt  or  looked  unusually  exaltee — but  surprised,  because 
it  was  eight  o'clock,  and  she  felt  that  even  Mrs.  Lobjoit's  good- 
nature might  have  limits. 

But  while  she  was  settling  down,  in  a  happy,  excited  dream 
she  half  wondered  that  she  did  not  wake  from,  back  came  the 
truants;  and  she  heard  from  her  room  above  Mrs.  Lobjoit's  report 
that  Miss  Sally  was  gone  upstairs  to  get  ready,  with  the  faintest 
hint  of  reproach  in  the  tone.  Then  her  mother's  "Don't  stop  to 
read  letters,  Gerry — that'll  do  after,"  and  Fenwick's  "All  right !" 
not  followed  by  immediate  obedience.  Then,  after  half  a  mo- 
ment's delay,  in  which  she  felt  some  surprise  at  herself  for  not 
going  out  to  meet  them  coming  up  the  stairs,  her  mother's  voice 
approaching,  that  asked  where  the  kitten  was. 

"Oh,  here  you  are,  chick! — how  long  have  you  been  in?    Why, 


488  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Sallykin!  what  is  it,  child?  .  .  .  Oh,  Gerry — Gerry — come  up 
here  and  hear  this!"  For  the  merpussy,  in  spite  of  many  stoical 
resolutions,  had  merged  a  beginning  of  verbal  communication  in 
a  burst  of  happy  tears  on  her  mother's  bosom. 

And  when  Fenwick,  coming  upstairs  three  steps  at  a  time,  filled 
the  whole  house  with  "Hullo,  Sarah!  what's  the  latest  intelli- 
gence?" this  young  lady  had  only  just  time  to  pull  herself  to- 
gether into  something  like  dignified  self-possession,  in  order  to 
reply  ridiculously — how  could  she  have  been  our  usual  Sally, 
else? — "We-ell!  I  don't  see  that  it's  anything  so  very  remark- 
able, after  all.  I've  been  encouraging  my  medical  adviser's  at- 
tentions, if  you  want  to  know,  Jeremiah." 

Was  it  only  a  fancy  of  Sally's,  as  she  ended  off  a  hurried  toilet, 
for  Mrs.  Lobjoit's  sake,  or  did  her  mother  say  to  Fenwick,  "Well! 
— that  is  something  delightful,  at  any  rate"?  As  though  it  were 
in  some  sense  a  set-off  against  something  not  delightful  elsewhere. 


CHAPTER  XLII 

OP  A  RECURRENCE  FROM  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT  AND  HOW  FENWICK  DIDN'T. 
WHY  A  SAILOR  WOULD  NOT  LEARN  TO  SWIM.  THE  BARON  AGAIN. 
OF  A  CUTTLE-FISH  AND  HIS  SQUIRT.  OF  THE  POWER  OF  A  PRIORI 
REASONING.  OF  SALLY'S  CONFESSION,  AND  HOW  FENWICK  WENT 
TO  A  FIRST-CLASS  HOTEL 

WHEN  Fenwick  turned  back  towards  home,  ostensibly  to 
shorten  Rosalind's  visit  to  the  doctor's  mother,  he  had  no  inten- 
tion of  doing  so  early  enough  to  allow  of  his  rejoining  his  com- 
panions, however  slowly  they  might  walk.  Neither  did  he  mean 
to  deprive  old  Mrs.  Vereker  of  Rosalind  until  she  had  had  her  full 
allowance  of  her.  In  an  hour  would  do — or  three-quarters.  He 
discounted  twenty-five  per  cent.,  owing  to  a  recollection  of  the 
green  veil  and  spectacles.  Then  he  felt  unkind,  and  said  to  him- 
self, that,  after  all,  the  old  woman  couldn't  help  it. 

Fenwick  felt  he  was  making  a  great  concession  in  giving  up 
three-quarters  of  an  hour  of  Rosalind.  As  soon  as  he  had  had 
exercise  enough  for  the  day,  and  was  in  a  mood  to  smoke  and 
saunter  about  idly,  he  wanted  Rosalind  badly,  and  was  little  dis- 
posed to  give  her  up.  But  the  old  Goody  was  going  away  to- 
morrow, and  he  would  be  liberal.  He  would  take  a  turn  along 
the  sea-front — would  have  time  to  get  down  to  the  jetty — and 
then  would  invade  the  cave  of  the  Octopus  and  extract  the  pris- 
oner from  its  tentacles. 

His  intention  in  forsaking  Sally  and  the  doctor  was  half  sus- 
pected by  the  latter,  quite  clear  to  himself,  and  only  unperceived 
by  his  opaque  stepdaughter.  As  he  idled  down  towards  the  old 
fisher-dwellings  and  the  net-huts,  he  tried  to  picture  the  form 
the  declaration  would  take,  and  the  way  it  would  be  received. 
That  this  would  be  favourable  he  never  doubted  for  a  moment; 
but  he  recalled  the  speech  of  Benedict  to  Beatrice,  "By  my  troth 
I  take  thee  for  pity,"  and  fancied  Sally's  response  might  be  of 
the  same  complexion.  His  recollection  of  these  words  produced 


490  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

a  mental  recurrence,  a  distressing  and  imperfect  one,  connected 
with  the  earlier  time  he  could  not  reach  back  to,  of  the  words 
being  used  to  himself  by  a  girl  who  ascribed  them  to  Eosalind  in 
As  You  Like  It,  and  a  discussion  after  of  their  whereabouts  in 
Shakespeare. 

The  indescribable  wrench  this  gave  his  mind  was  so  painful 
that  he  was  quite  relieved  to  recall  Vereker's  opinion  that  it  was 
always  the  imperfection  of  the  memory  and  the  effort  that  gave 
pain,  not  the  thing  remembered.  And  in  this  case  there  could 
be  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  mere  dream,  for  the  girl  not  only  took 
the  form  of  his  Eosey  he  was  going  back  to  directly,  but  actually 
claimed  her  name,  saying  distinctly,  "like  my  namesake,  Celia's 
friend,  in  Shakespeare."  Could  any  clearer  proof  be  given  that 
it  was  mere  brain-froth? 

The  man  with  "Bessie"  and  "Elinor"  tattooed  on  his  arm  was 
enjoying  a  pipe  and  mending  a  net,  not  to  be  too  idle.  The 
glass  might  be  rising — or  not.  He  was  independent  of  Science. 
A  trifle  of  wind  in  the  night  was  his  verdict,  glass  or  no!  The 
season  was  drawing  nigh  to  a  close  now  for  a  bathing-resort,  as 
you  might  say.  Come  another  se'nnight,  you  wouldn't  see  a 
machine  down,  as  like  as  not.  But  you  could  never  say,  to  a 
nicety.  He'd  known  every  lodging  in  the  old  town  full,  times 
and  again,  to  the  end  of  September  month,  before  now.  But  this 
year  was  going  to  fall  early,  and  your  young  lady  would  lose  her 
swimming. 

"She's  a  rare  lass,  too,  for  the  water,"  he  concluded,  without 
any  consciousness  of  familiarity  in  the  change  of  phrase.  "Not 
that  I  know  much  myself,  touching  swimming  and  the  like.  For 
I  can't  swim  myself,  never  a  stroke." 

"That's  strange,  too,  for  a  seaman,"  said  Fenwick. 

"No,  sir!  Not  so  strange  as  you  might  think  it.  You  ask  up 
and  down  among  we,  waterside  or  seafaring,  and  you'll  find  a 
many  have  never  studied  it,  for  the  purpose.  Many  that  would 
make  swimmers,  with  a  bit  of  practice,  will  hold  off,  for  the 
reason  I  tell  you.  Overboard  in  mid-ocean,  and  none  to  help, 
and  not  a  spar,  would  you  soonest  drown,  end  on,  or  have  to  fight 
for  it,  like  it  or  no  ?" 

"Drown!  The  sooner  the  better."  Fenwick  has  no  doubt 
about  the  matter. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  491 

"Why,  sure!  So  I  say,  master.  And  I've  put  no  encourage- 
ment on  young  Benjamin,  over  yonder,  to  give  study  to  the  learn- 
ing of  it,  for  the  same  reason.  And  not  a  stroke  can  he  swim, 
any  more  than  his  father." 

"Well!  I  can't  swim  myself,  so  there's  three  of  us!"  said  Fen- 
wick.  "My  daughter  swims  enough  for  the  lot."  It  gave  him 
such  pleasure  to  speak  thus  of  Sally  boldly,  where  there  need  be 
no  exact  definition  of  their  kinship.  The  net-mender  pursued 
the  subject  with  the  kind  of  gravity  on  him  that  always  comes 
on  a  seaman  when  drowning  is  under  discussion. 

"She's  a  rare  one,  for  sure.  Never  but  three,  or  may  be  fower, 
have  I  seen  in  my  time  to  come  anigh  to  her — man  nor  woman. 
The  best  swimmer  a  long  way  I've  known — Peter  Burtenshaw  by 
name — I  helped  bring  to  after  drowning.  He'd  swum — at  a 
guess — the  best  part  of  six  hours  afower  we  heard  the  cry  of  him 
on  our  boat.  Too  late  a  bit  we  were,  but  we  found  him,  just 
stone-dead  like,  and  brought  him  round.  It  was  what  Peter  said 
of  that  six  hours  put  me  off  of  letting  'em  larn  yoong  Benjamin 
to  swim  when  he  was  a  yoongster.  And  when  he  got  to  years  of 
understanding  I  told  him  my  mind,  and  he  never  put  himself  to 
study  it." 

Fenwick  would  have  liked  to  go  on  talking  with  the  fisherman, 
as  his  mental  recurrence  about  Shakespeare  had  fidgeted  him, 
and  he  found  speech  a  relief.  But  some  noisy  visitors  from  the 
new  St.  Sennans  on  the  cliff  above  had  made  an  irruption  into 
the  little  old  fishing-quarter,  and  the  attention  of  the  net-mender 
was  distracted  by  possibilities  of  a  boat-to-day  being  foisted  on 
their  simplicity;  it  was  hardly  rough  enough  to  forbid  the  idea. 
Fenwick,  therefore,  sauntered  on  towards  the  jetty,  but  presently 
turned  to  go  back,  as  half  his  time  had  clasped. 

As  he  repassed  the  net-mender  with  a  short  word  or  two  for 
valediction,  his  ear  was  caught  by  a  loud  voice  among  the  party 
of  visitors,  who  were  partly  sitting  on  the  beach,  partly  throwing 
stones  in  the  water.  Something  familiar  about  that  voice, 
surely ! 

"I  gannod  throw  stoanss.  I  am  too  vat.  I  shall  sit  on  die 
peach  and  see  effrypotty  else  throw  stoanss.  I  shall  smoke  an- 
other cigar.  Will  you  haff  another  cigar,  Mr.  Prown?  You  will 
not?  Ferry  well!  Nor  you,  Mrs.  Prown?  Not  for  the  worlt? 


492  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Ferry  well!  N"or  you,  Mr.  Bilkington?  Ferry  well!  I  shall  haff 
one  myself,  and  you  shall  throw  stoanss."  And  then,  as  though 
to  remove  the  slightest  doubt  about  the  identity  of  the  speaker, 
the  voice  broke  into  song: 

"Ich  hatt'  einen  Eameraden, 
Einen  bessern  findst  du  nicht — " 

but  ended  on  "Mem  guter  Kamerad,"  exclaiming  stentorianly, 
"Opleitch  me  with  a  madge,"  and  lighting  his  cigar  in  spite  of 
his  companions'  indignation  at  the  music  stopping. 

Fenwick  stood  hesitating  a  moment  in  doubt  what  to  do.  His 
inclination  was  to  go  straight  down  the  beach  to  his  old  friend, 
whom — of  course,  you  understand? — he  now  remembered  quite 
well,  and  explain  the  strange  circumstances  that  had  rendered 
their  meeting  in  Switzerland  abortive.  But  then! — what  would 
the  effect  be  on  his  present  life,  in  his  relation  to  Rosalind  and 
(almost  as  important)  to  Sally?  Diedrich  Kreutzkammer  had 
been,  for  some  time  in  California,  a  most  intimate  friend.  Fen- 
wick  had  made  him  the  confidant  of  his  marriage  and  his  early 
life,  all  that  he  had  since  forgotten,  and  he  had  it  now  in  his 
power  to  recover  all  this  from  the  past.  Strange  to  say,  although 
he  could  remember  the  telling  of  these  things,  he  could  only  re- 
member weak,  confused  snatches  of  what  he  told.  It  was  un- 
accountable— but  there! — he  could  not  try  to  unravel  that  skein 
now.  He  must  settle,  and  promptly,  whether  to  speak  to  the 
Baron  or  to  run. 

He  was  not  long  in  coming  to  a  decision,  especially  as  he  saw 
that  hesitation  was  sure  to  end  in  the  adoption  of  the  former 
course — probably  the  wrong  one.  He  just  caught  the  Baron's 
last  words — a  denunciation  of  the  hotel  he  was  stopping  at,  loud 
enough  to  reach  the  new  St.  Sennans,  of  which  it  was  the  prin- 
cipal constituent — and  then  walked  briskly  off.  He  arrived  at 
Iggulden's  within  the  hour  he  had  first  conceded  to  the  Octopus, 
and  got  Rosalind  out  for  a  walk,  as  originally  proposed. 

There  was  no  apparent  reason  why  the  impossibility  of  over- 
taking Sally  and  the  doctor  should  be  interpreted  into  an  excuse 
for  going  in  the  opposite  direction;  but  each  accepted  it  as  such, 
or  as  a  justification  at  least.  Rosalind  had  not  so  distinct  a 
reason  as  her  husband  for  wishing  not  to  break  in  upon  them,  as 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  493 

he  had  not  reported  the  whole  of  his  last  talk  with  Vereker.  But 
though  she  did  not  know  that  Dr.  Conrad  had  as  good  as  promised 
to  make  a  clean  breast  of  it  before  returning  to  London,  she 
thought  nothing  was  more  likely  than  that  he  should  do  so,  and 
resolved  to  leave  the  stage  clear  for  the  leading  parts.  She  may 
even  have  flattered  herself  that  she  was  showing  tact — keeping 
an  unconscious  Gerry  out  of  the  way,  who  might  else  interfere 
with  the  stars  in  their  courses,  in  the  manner  of  the  tactless. 
"Rosalind  suspected  this  of  Sally,  that  whatever  she  might  think 
she  thought,  and  whatever  parade  she  made  of  an  even  mind  no 
sentiments  whatever  prevailed  in,  there  was  in  her  inmost  heart 
another  Sally,  locked  in  and  unconfessed,  that  had  strong  views 
on  the  subject.  And  she  wanted  this  Sally  to  be  let  out  for  a 
spell,  or  for  poor  Prosy  to  be  allowed  into  her  cell  long  enough 
to  speak  for  himself.  Anyhow,  this  was  their  last  chance  here, 
and  she  wasn't  going  to  spoil  it. 

She  had  gone  near  to  making  up  her  mind — after  her  suffer- 
ings from  Gwenny's  mamma  in  the  morning — to  attempt,  at  any 
rate,  a  communication  of  their  joint  story  to  her  husband.  But 
it  must  depend  on  circumstances  and  possibilities.  She  foresaw 
a  long  period  of  resolutions  undermined  by  doubts,  decisions 
rescinded  at  the  last  moment,  and  suddenly-revealed  ambushes, 
and  perhaps  in  the  end  self-reproach  for  a  mismanaged  revela- 
tion that  might  have  been  so  much  more  skilfully  done.  Never 
mind — it  was  all  in  the  day's  work!  She  had  borne  much,  and 
would  bear  more. 

"How  do  you  know  they  are  all  nonsense,  Gerry  darling?" 
We  catch  their  conversation  in  the  middle  as  they  walk  along  the 
sands  the  tide  is  leaving  clear,  after  accommodating  the  few 
morning-bathers  with  every  opportunity  to  get  out  of  their  depths. 
"How  do  you  know?  Surely  the  parts  that  you  do  seem  to 
remember  clearly  must  be  all  right,  however  confused  the 
rest  is." 

Fenwick  gives  his  head  the  old  shake,  dashes  his  hair  across  his 
brow  and  rubs  it,  then  replies:  "The  worst  of  the  job  is,  you  see, 
that  the  bits  I  remember  clearest  are  the  greatest  gammon.  What 
do  you  make  of  that?" 

Rosalind's  hand  closes  on  her  nettle.  "Instance,  Gerry! — give 
me  an  instance,  and  I  shall  know  what  you  mean." 


494  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Fenwick  is  outrageously  confident  of  the  safety  of  his  last  im- 
perfect recollection.  He  can  trust  to  its  absurdity  if  he  can  trust 
to  anything." 

"Well!  For  instance,  just  now — an  hour  ago — I  recollected 
something  about  a  girl  who  would  have  it  Eosalind  in  As  You 
Like  It  said,  'By  my  troth  I  take  thee  for  pity,'  to  Orlando.  And 
all  the  while  it  was  Benedict  said  it  to  Beatrice  in  All's  Well 
that  Ends  Well" 

The  hand  on  the  nettle  tightens.  "Gerry  dearest!'''  she  remon- 
strates. "There's  nothing  in  that,  as  Sallykin  says.  Of  course 
it  was  Benedict  said  it  to  Beatrice." 

"Yes — but  the  gammon  wasn't  in  that.  It  was  the  girl  that 
said  it.  When  I  tried  to  think  who  it  was,  she  turned  into  you! 
I  mean,  she  became  exactly  like  you." 

"But  I'm  a  woman  of  forty."  This  was  a  superb  piece  of 
nettle-grasping;  and  there  was  not  a  tremor  in  the  voice  that  said 
it,  and  the  handsome  face  of  the  speaker  was  calm,  if  a  little  pale. 
Fenwick  noticed  nothing. 

"Like  what  1  should  suppose  you  were  as  a  girl  of  eighteen  or 
twenty.  It's  perfectly  clear  how  the  thing  worked.  It  was  from 
something  else  I  seem  to  recollect  her  saying,  'Like  my  name- 
sake, Celia's  friend  in  Shakespeare.'  The  moment  she  said  that, 
of  course  the  name  Rosalind  made  me  think  you  into  the  business. 
It  was  quite  natural." 

"Quite  natural!  And  when  I  was  that  girl  that  was  what  I 
said."  She  had  braced  herself  up,  in  all  the  resolution  of  her 
strong  nature,  to  the  telling  of  Tier  secret,  and  his;  and  she 
thought  this  was  her  opportunity.  She  was  mistaken.  For  as 
she  stood,  keeping,  as  it  were,  a  heartquake  in  abeyance,  till  she 
should  see  him  begin  to  understand,  he  replied  without  the  least 
perceiving  her  meaning — evidently  accounting  her  speech  only 
a  variant  on  "If  I  had  been  that  girl,"  and  so  forth— "Of  course 
you  did,  sweetheart,"  said  he,  with  a  laugh  in  his  voice,  "when 
you  were  that  girl.  And  I  expect  that  girl  said  it  when  she 
was  herself,  whoever  she  was,  and  the  name  Rosalind  turned  her 
into  you?  Look  at  this  cuttlefish  before  he  squirts." 

For  a  moment  Rosalind  Fenwick  was  almost  two  people,  so 
distinctly  did  the  two  aspects  or  conditions  of  herself  strike  her 
mind.  The  one  was  that  of  breath  drawn  freely,  of  a  respite,  a 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  495 

reprieve,  a  heartquake  escaped ;  for,  indeed,  she  had  begun  to  feel, 
as  she  neared  the  crisis,  that  the  trial  might  pass  her  powers 
of  endurance.  The  other  of  a  new  terror — that  the  tale,  perhaps, 
could  not  be  told  at  all!  that,  unassisted  by  a  further  revival  of 
her  husband's  memory,  it  would  remain  permanently  incredible 
by  him,  with  what  effect  of  a  half-knowledge  of  the  past  God  only 
knew.  The  sense  of  reprieve  got  the  better  of  the  new-born  ap- 
prehension— bid  it  stand  over  for  a  while,  at  least.  Sufficient  for 
the  day  was  the  evil  thereof. 

Meanwhile,  Gerry,  absolutely  unconscious  of  her  emotion,  and 
seeming  much  less  disconcerted  over  this  abortive  recollection 
than  over  previous  ones,  stood  gazing  down  into  the  clear  rock- 
pool  that  contained  the  cuttlefish.  "Do  come  and  look  at  him, 
Rosey  love,"  said  he.  "His  manners  are  detestable,  but  there 
can  be  no  doubt  about  the  quality  of  his  black." 

She  leaned  a  bit  heavily  on  the  arm  she  took  as  they  left  the 
cuttlefish  to  his  ill-conditioned  solitude.  "Tired,  dearest?"  said 
her  husband;  and  she  answered,  "Just  a  little!"  But  his  mind 
was  a  clean  sheet  on  which  his  story  would  have  to  be  written 
in  ink  as  black  as  the  cuttlefish's  Parthian  squirt,  and  in  a  full 
round  hand  without  abbreviations,  unless  it  should  do  something 
to  help  itself.  Let  it  rest  while  she  rested  and  thought. 

She  thought  and  thought — happy  for  all  her  strain  of  nerve 
and  mind,  on  the  quiet  stretch  of  sand  and  outcrop  of  chalk, 
slippery  with  weed,  that  the  ebbing  tide  would  leave  safe  for 
them  for  hours  to  come.  So  thinking,  and  seeing  the  way  in 
which  her  husband's  reason  was  entrenched  against  the  facts  of 
his  own  life,  in  a  citadel  defended  by  human  experience  at  bay, 
she  wavered  in  her  resolution  of  a  few  hours  since — or,  rather,  she 
saw  the  impossibility  of  forcing  the  position,  thinking  contentedly 
that  at  least  if  it  was  so  impracticable  to  her  it  would  be  equally 
so  to  other  agencies,  and  he  might  be  relied  on  to  remain  in  the 
dark.  The  status  quo  would  be  the  happiest,  if  it  could  be  pre- 
served. So  when,  after  a  two  hours'  walk  through  the  evening 
glow  and  the  moonrise,  Rosalind  came  home  to  Sally's  revelation, 
as  we  have  seea,  the  slight  exception  her  voice  took  to  universal 
rejoicing  was  th.e  barest  echo  of  the  tension  of  her  absolutely  un- 
sueessefu.!  attempt  to  get  in  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge  of  an  in- 
credible revelation. 


496  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

Quite  incredible!  So  hopeless  is  the  case  of  a  mere  crude, 
unadulterated  fact  against  an  irresistible  a  priori  belief  in  its 
incredibility. 

Sally  was  reserved  about  details,  but  clear  about  the  outcome 
of  her  expedition  with  Prosy.  They  perfectly  understood  each 
other,  and  it  wasn't  anybody  else's  concern;  present  company's, 
of  course,  excepted.  Questioned  as  to  plans  for  the  future — 
inasmuch  as  a  marriage  did  not  seem  inconsequent  under  the 
circumstances — Sally  became  enigmatical.  The  word  "mar- 
riage" had  not  been  so  much  as  mentioned.  She  admitted  the 
existence  of  the  institution,  but  proposed — now  and  for  the 
future — to  regard  it  as  premature.  Wasn't  even  sure  she  would 
tell  anybody,  except  Tishy;  and  perhaps  also  Henriette  Prince, 
because  she  was  sure  to  ask,  and  possibly  Karen  Braun  if  she  did 
ask.  But  she  didn't  seem  at  all  clear  what  she  was  going  to  say 
to  them,  as  she  objected  to  the  expression  "engaged."  A  thing 
called  "it"  without  an  antecedent,  got  materialised,  and  did  duty 
for  something  more  intelligible.  Yes! — she  would  tell  .Tishy 
about  It,  and  just  those  one  or  two  others.  But  if  It  was  going 
to  make  any  difference,  or  there  was  to  be  any  fuss,  she  would 
just  break  It  off,  and  have  done  with  It. 

Sentiments  of  this  sort  provoked  telegraphic  interchanges  of 
smile-suggestion  between  her  hearers  all  through  the  evening 
meal  that  was  so  unusually  late.  This  lateness  received  sanction 
from  the  fact  that  Mr.  Fenwick  would  very  likely  have  letters 
by  the  morning  post  that  would  oblige  him  to  return  to  town 
by  the  afternoon  train.  If  so,  this  was  his  last  evening,  and 
clearly  nothing  mattered.  Law  and  order  might  be  blowed,  or 
hanged. 

It  was,  under  these  circumstances,  rather  a  surprise  to  his 
hearers  when  he  said,  after  smoking  half  through  his  first  cigar, 
that  he  thought  he  should  walk  up  to  the  hotel  in  the  new  town, 
because  he  fancied  there  was  a  man  there  he  knew.  As  to  his 
name,  he  thought  it  was  Pilkington,  but  wasn't  sure.  Taunted 
with  reticence,  he  said  it  was  nothing  but  business.  As  Eosalind 
could  easily  conceive  that  Gerry  might  not  want  to  introduce  all 
the  Pilkingtons  he  chanced  across  to  his  family,  she  didn't  press 
for  explanation.  "He'll  very  likely  call  round  to  see  your  young 
man,  chick,  when  he's  done  with  Pilkington."  To  which  Sally 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  497 

replied,  "Oh,  he'll  come  round  here.  Told  him  to!"  Which  he 
did,  at  about  ten  o'clock.  But  Fenwick  had  never  called  at  Iggul- 
den's,  neither  had  he  come  back  to  his  own  home.  It  was  after 
midnight  before  his  foot  was  on  the  stairs,  and  Sally  had  retired 
for  the  night,  telling  her  mother  not  to  fidget — Jeremiah  would 
be  all  right. 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

OF  AN  OBSERVANT  AND  THOUGHTFUL,  BUT  SNIFFY,  WAITER;  AND  HOW 
HE  OPENED  A  NEW  BOTTLE  OF  COGNAC.  HOW  THE  BARON  SAW 
FENWICK  HOME,  WITHOUT  HIS  HAT.  AN  OLD  MEMORY  FROM  ROSA- 
LIND'S PAST  AND  HIS.  AND  THEN  FACE  TO  FACE  WITH  THE  WHOLE. 
SLEEP  UPON  IT!  BUT  WHAT  BECAME  OF  HIS  HORRIBLE  BABY? 

AT  eleven  o'clock  that  night  a  respectable  man  with  weak  eyes 
and  a  cold  was  communing  with  a  commanding  Presence  that 
lived  in  a  bureau — nothing  less! — in  the  entrance-hall  of  the  big 
hotel  at  the  new  St.  Sennans.  It  was  that  of  a  matron  with  jet 
earrings  and  tube-curls  and  a  tortoise-shell  comb,  and  an  educated 
contempt  for  her  species.  It  lived  in  that  bureau  with  a  speaking- 
pipe  to  speak  to  every  floor,  and  a  telephone  for  the  universe 
beyond.  He  that  now  ventured  to  address  it  was  a  waiter,  clearly, 
for  he  carried  a  table-napkin,  on  nobody's  behalf  and  uselessly, 
but  with  a  feeling  for  emblems  which  might  have  made  him 
Rouge  Dragon  in  another  sphere.  As  it  was,  he  was  the  head 
waiter  in  the  accursed  restaurant  or  dining-sa/ow  at  the  excruciat- 
ing new  hotel,  where  he  would  bring  you  cold  misery  from  the 
counter  at  the  other  end,  or  lukewarm  depression  a  la  carte  from 
the  beyond — but  nothing  that  would  do  you  any  good  inside,  from 
anywhere. 

"Are  those  parties  going,  in  eighty-nine,  do  you  make  out?" 
The  Presence  speaks,  but  with  languid  interest. 

"Hapathetic  party,  and  short  customer.  Takes  you  up  rather 
free.  Name  of  Pilkington.  Not  heard  'em  say  anything!" 

"Who  did  you  say  was  going?" 

"The  German  party.  Party  of  full  'abit.  Call  at  seven  in 
the  morning.  Fried  sole  and  cutlets  a  la  mangtynong  and  sweet 
omelet  at  seven-thirty  sharp.  Too  much  by  way  of  smoking 
all  day,  in  my  thinking!  But  they  say  plums  and  greengages, 
took  all  through  meals,  is  a  set-off." 

"I  don't  pretend  to  be  an  authority.  Isn't  that  him,  in  the 
smoking-room?" 

486 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  499 

"Goin'  on  in  German?  Prob'ly."  Both  stop  and  listen. 
What  they  hear  is  the  Baron,  going  on  very  earnestly  indeed  in 
German.  What  keeps  them  listening  is  that  another  voice  comes 
in  occasionally — a  voice  with  more  than  mere  earnestness  in  it; 
a  voice  rather  of  anguish  under  control.  Then  both  voices  pause, 
and  silence  comes  suddenly. 

"Who's  the  other  party?" 

"In  a  blue  soote,  livin'  in  one  of  the  sea-'ouses  down  on  the 
beach.  Big  customer.  Prodooces  a  rousin'  impression!" 

"Is  that  his  daughter  that  swims?  .  .  .  That's  him — coming 
away." 

But  it  isn't.  It  is  the  Baron,  wrathful,  shouting,  swearing, 
neither  in  German  nor  English,  but  in  either  or  both.  Where 
is  that  tamned  kellner?  Why  does  he  not  answer  the  pell?  This 
is  an  abscheuliches  hotel,  and  every  one  connected  with  it  is  an 
Esel.  What  he  wants  is  some  cognac  and  a  doctor  forthwith. 
His  friend  has  fainted,  and  he  has  been  pressing  the  tamned 
puddon,  and  nobody  comes. 

The  attitude  of  the  lady  with  the  earrings  epitomizes  the  com- 
plete indifference  of  a  hotel-keeper  to  the  private  lives  of  its  guests 
nowadays.  That  bell  must  be  seen  to,  she  says.  Otherwise  she 
is  callous.  The  respectable  waiter  hurries  for  the  cognac,  and 
returns  with  a  newly-drawn  bottle  and  two  glasses  to  the  smoking- 
room,  to  find  that  the  gentleman  has  recovered  and  won't  have 
any.  He  suggests  that  our  young  man  could  step  round  for  Dr. 
Maccoll;  but  the  proposed  patient  says,  "The  devil  fly  away  with 
Dr.  Maccoll!"  which  doesn't  look  like  docility.  The  respectable 
waiter  takes  note  of  his  appearance,  and  reports  of  it  to  his 
principal  on  dramatic  grounds,  not  as  a  matter  into  which  human 
sympathies  enter. 

"Very  queer  he  looks.  Doo  to  reaction,  or  the  coatin's  of  the 
stomach.  Affectin'  the  action  of  the  heart.  .  .  .  No,  there's 
nobody  else  in  the  smoking-room.  Party  with  the  'ook  instead 
of  a  hand's  watching  of  'em  play  vpenny-pool  in  the  billiard- 
room."  Surely  a  tale  to  bring  a  tear  to  the  eye  of  sensibility! 
But  not  to  one  that  sees  in  mankind  only  a  thing  that  comes  and 
goes  and  pays  its  bill — or  doesn't.  The  lady  in  the  bureau  ap- 
pears to  listen  slightly  to  the  voices  that  come  afresh  from  the 
smoking-room,  but  their  duration  is  all  she  is  concerned  with. 


500  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"He's  going  now,"  she  says.  He  is;  and  he  does  look  queer — very 
queer.  His  companion  does  not  leave  him  at  the  door,  but  walks 
out  into  the  air  with  him  without  his  hat,  speaking  to  him  volubly 
and  earnestly,  always  in  German.  His  speech  suggests  affectionate 
exhortation,  and  the  way  he  takes  his  arm  is  affectionate.  The 
voices  go  out  of  hearing,  and  it  is  so  long  before  the  Baron  re- 
turns, hatless,  that  he  must  have  gone  all  the  way  to  the  sea- 
houses  down  on  the  beach. 

Sally  retired  to  her  own  couch  in  order  to  supply  an  induce- 
ment to  her  mother  to  go  to  bed  herself,  and  sit  up  no  longer 
for  Gerry's  return,  which  might  be  any  time,  of  course.  Rosalind 
conceded  the  point,  and  was  left  alone  under  a  solemn  promise 
not  to  be  a  goose  and  fidget.  But  she  was  very  deliberate  about 
it;  and  though  she  didn't  fidget,  she  went  all  the  slower  that  she 
might  think  back  on  a  day — an  hour — of  twenty  years  ago,  and 
on  the  incident  that  Gerry  had  half  recalled,  quite  accurately  as 
far  as  it  went,  but  strangely  unsupported  by  surroundings  or 
concomitants. 

It  came  back  to  her  with  both.  She  could  remember  even  the 
face  of  her  mother's  coachman  Forsyth,  who  had  driven  her  with 
Miss  Stanynaught,  her  chaperon  in  this  case,  to  the  dance  where 
she  was  to  meet  Gerry,  as  it  turned  out;  and  how  Forsyth  was 
told  not  to  come  for  them  before  three  in  the  morning,  as  he 
would  only  have  to  wait;  and  how  Miss  Stanynaught,  her  gover- 
ness of  late,  who  was  over  forty,  pleaded  for  two,  and  Forsyth  did 
have  to  wait;  and  how  she  heard  the  music  and  the  dancing  above, 
for  they  were  late;  and  how  they  waded  upstairs  against  a  de- 
scending stream  of  muslin  skirits  and  marked  attentions  going 
lawnwards  towards  the  summer  night,  and  bent  on  lemonade  and 
ices;  and  then  their  entry  into  the  dancing-room,  and  an  excited 
hostess  and  daughters  introducing  partners  like  mad;  and  an 
excited  daughter  greeting  a  gentleman  who  had  come  upstairs 
behind  them,  with  "Well,  Mr.  Palliser,  you  are  late.  You  don't 
deserve  to  be  allowed  to  dance  at  all."  And  that  was  Jessie  Nairn, 
of  course,  who  added,  "I've  jilted  you  for  Arthur  Fenwick." 

How  well  Rosalind  could  remember  turning  round  and  seeing 
a  splendid  young  chap  who  said,  "What  a  jolly  shame!"  and 
didn't  seem  to  be  oppressed  by  that  or  anything  else;  also  Jessie's 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  501 

further  speech,  apologizing  for  having  also  appropriated  Miss 
Graythorpe's  partner.  So  they  would  have  to  console  each  other. 
What  a  saucy  girl  Jessie  was,  to  be  sure!  She  introduced  them 
with  a  run,  "Mr.  Algernon  Palliser,  Miss  Rosalind  Graythorpe, 
Miss  Rosalind  Graythorpe,  Mr.  Algernon  Palliser,"  and  fled. 
And  Rosalind  was  piqued  about  Arthur  Fenwick's  desertion. 
It  seemed  all  so  strange  now — such  a  vanished  world!  Just  fancy! 
— she  had  been  speculating  if  she  should  accept  Arthur,  if  he  got 
to  the  point  of  offering  himself. 

But  a  shaft  from  Cupid's  bow  must  have  been  shot  from  a 
slack  string,  for  Rosalind  could  remember  how  quickly  she  forgot 
Arthur  Fenwick  as  she  took  a  good  look  at  Gerry  Palliser,  his 
great  friend,  whom  he  had  so  often  raved  about  to  her,  and  who 
was  to  be  brought  to  play  lawn-tennis  next  Monday.  And  then 
to  the  ear  of  her  mind,  listening  back  to  long  ago,  came  a  voice 
so  like  the  one  she  was  to  hear  soon,  when  that  footstep  should 
come  on  the  stair. 

"I  can't  waltz  like  Arthur,  Miss  Graythorpe.  But  you'll 
have  to  put  up  with  me."  And  the  smile  that  spread  over  his 
whole  face  was  so  like  him  now.  Then  came  the  allusion  to 
As  You  Like  It. 

"I'll  take  you  for  pity,  Mr.  Palliser — T>y  my  troth,'  as  my 
namesake  Rosalind,  Celia's  friend,  in  Shakespeare,  says  to  what's 
his  name  .  .  .  Orlando.  .  .  ." 

"Come,  I  say,  Miss  Graythorpe,  that's  not  fair.  It  was  Bene- 
dict said  it  to  Beatrice." 

"Did  he?    And  did  Beatrice  say  she  wouldn't  waltz  with  him  ?" 

"Oh,  please!  I'm  so  sorry.  No — it  wasn't  Benedict — it  was 
Rosalind." 

"That's  right!  Now  let  me  button  your  glove  for  you.  You'll 
be  for  ever,  with  those  big  fingers."  For  both  of  us,  thought 
Rosalind,  were  determined  to  begin  at  once  and  not  lose  a  minute. 
That  dear  old  time  .  .  .  before  .  .  .  ! 

Then,  even  clearer  still,  came  back  to  her  the  dim  summer- 
dawn  in  the  garden,  with  here  and  there  a  Chinese  lantern  not 
burned  out,  and  the  flagging  music  of  the  weary  musicians  afar, 
and  she  and  Gerry  with  the  garden  nearly  to  themselves.  She 
could  feel  the  cool  air  of  the  morning  again,  and  hear  the  crowing 
of  a  self-important  cock.  And  the  informal  wager  which  would 


502  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

live  the  longer — a  Chinese  lantern  at  the  point  of  death,  or  the 
vanishing  moon  just  touching  the  line  of  tree-tops  against  the 
sky,  stirred  by  the  morning  wind.  And  the  voice  of  Gerry  when 
return  to  the  house  and  a  farewell  became  inevitable.  She  shut 
her  eyes,  and  could  hear  it  and  her  own  answer. 

"I  shall  go  to  India  in  six  weeks,  and  never  see  you  again." 

"Yes,  you  will ;  because  Arthur  Fenwick  is  to  bring  you  round 
to  lawn-tennis.  .  .  ." 

"That  won't  make  having  to  go  any  better.  And  then  when  I 
come  back,  in  ever  so  many  years,  I  shall  find  you  .  .  ." 

"Gone  to  kingdom  come?" 

"No — married!  ...  Oh  no,  do  stop  out — don't  go  in 
yet " 

"We  ought  to  go  in.     Now,  don't  be  silly.'* 

"I  can't  help  it.  .  .  .  Well! — a  fellow  I  know  asked  a  girl  to 
marry  him  he'd  only  known  two  hours." 

"What  very  silly  friends  you  must  have,  Mr.  Palliser!  Did 
she  marry  him?" 

"No!  but  they're  engaged,  and  he's  in  Ceylon.  But  you 
wouldn't  marry  me.  .  .  ." 

"How  on  earth  can  you  tell,  in  such  a  short  time?  What  a 
goose  you  are!  .  .  .  There! — the  music's  stopped,  and  Mrs. 
Nairn  said  that  must  be  the  last  waltz.  Come  along,  or  we  shall 
catch  it." 

They  had  known  each  other  exactly  four  hours! 

Eosalind  remembered  it  all,  word  for  word.  And  how  Gerry 
captured  a  torn  glove  to  keep;  and  when  he  came,  as  appointed, 
to  lawn-tennis,  went  back  at  once  to  Shakespeare,  and  said  he 
had  looked  it  up,  and  it  was  Beatrice  and  Benedict,  and  not 
Eosalind  at  all.  She  could  remember,  too,  her  weary  and  re- 
proachful chaperon,  and  the  well-deserved  scolding  she  got  for 
the  way  she  had  been  going  on  with  that  young  Palliser.  Eight 
dances! 

So  long  ago!  And  she  could  think  through  it  all  again.  And 
to  him  it  had  become  a  memory  of  shreds  and  patches.  Let  it 
remain  go,  or  become  again  oblivion — vanish  with  the  rest  of  his 
forgotten  past!  Her  thought  that  it  would  do  so  was  confidence 
itself  as  she  eat  there  waiting  for  his  footstep  on  the  stair.  For 
had  she  not  spoken  of  herself  unflinchingly  as  the  girl  who  said 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  503 

those  words  from  Shakespeare,  and  had  not  her  asseveration 
slipped  from  the  mind  that  could  not  receive  it  as  water  slips 
from  oil?  She  could  wait  there  without  misgiving — could  even 
hope  that,  whatever  it  was  due  to,  this  recent  stirring  of  the  dead 
bones  of  memory  might  mean  nothing,  and  die  away  leaving  all 
as  it  was  before. 

Sally,  acknowledging  physical  fatigue  with  reluctance,  after 
her  long  walk  and  swim  in  the  morning,  went  to  bed.  It  pre- 
sented itself  to  her  as  a  thing  practicable,  and  salutary  in  her 
state  of  bewilderment,  to  lie  in  bed  with  her  eyes  closed,  and 
think  over  the  events  of  the  day.  It  would  be  really  quiet.  And 
then  she  would  be  awake  when  Jeremiah  came  in,  and  would  call 
out  for  information  if  there  was  a  sound  of  anything  to  hear 
about.  But  her  project  fell  through,  for  she  had  scarcely  closed 
her  eyes  when  she  fell  into  a  trap  laid  for  her  by  sleep — deep 
sleep,  such  as  we  fancy  dreamless.  And  when  Fenwick  came 
back  she  could  not  have  heard  his  words  to  her  mother,  even  had 
they  risen  above  the  choking  undertone  in  which  he  spoke,  nor 
her  mother's  reply,  more  audible  in  its  sudden  alarm,  but  still 
kept  down — for,  startled  as  she  was  at  Gerry's  unexpected  words, 
she  did  not  lose  her  presence  of  mind. 

"What  is  it,  Gerry  darling?  What  is  it,  dear  love?  Has  any- 
thing happened?  I'll  come." 

"Yes — come  into  my  room.  Come  away  from  our  girl.  She 
mustn't  hear." 

She  knew  then  at  once  that  his  past  had  come  upon  him  some- 
how. She  knew  it  at  once  from  the  tone  of  his  voice,  but  she 
could  make  no  guess  as  to  the  manner  of  it.  She  knew,  too,  that 
that  heartquake  was  upon  her — the  one  she  had  felt  so  glad  to 
stave  off  that  day  upon  the  beach — and  that  self-command  had  to 
be  found  in  an  emergency  she  might  not  have  the  strength  to  meet. 

For  the  shock,  coming  as  it  did  upon  her  false  confidence — a 
sudden  thunderbolt  from  a  cloudless  sky — was  an  overwhelming 
one.  She  knew  she  would  have  a  moment's  outward  calm  be- 
fore her  powers  gave  way,  and  she  must  use  it  for  Sally's  security. 
What  Gerry  said  was  true — their  girl  must  not  hear. 

But  oh,  how  quick  thought  travels!  By  the  time  Rosalind, 
after  stopping  a  second  outside  Sally's  door,  listening  for  any 


504  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

movement,  had  closed  that  of  her  husband's  room  as  she  fol- 
lowed him  in,  placing  the  light  she  carried  on  a  chair  as  she 
entered,  she  had  found  in  the  words  "our  girl"  a  foretaste  of 
water  in  the  desert  that  might  be  before  her. 

Another  moment  and  she  knew  she  was  safe,  so  far  as  Gerry 
himself  went.  As  he  had  himself  said,  he  would  be  the  same 
Gerry  to  her  and  she  the  same  Rosey  to  him,  whatever  wild 
beast  should  leap  out  of  the  past  to  molest  them.  She  knew  it 
was  as  he  caught  her  to  his  heart,  crushing  her  almost  painfully 
in  the  great  strength  that  went  beyond  his  own  control  as  he 
shook  and  trembled  like  an  aspen-leaf  under  the  force  of  an 
emotion  she  could  only,  as  yet,  guess  at  the  nature  of.  But  the 
guess  was  not  a  wrong  one,  in  so  far  as  it  said  that  each  was  there 
to  be  the  other's  shield  and  guard  against  ill,  past,  present,  and 
to  come — a  refuge-haven  to  fly  to  from  every  tempest  fate  might 
have  in  store.  She  could  not  speak — could  not  have  found  ut- 
terance even  had  words  come  to  her.  She  could  only  rest  passive 
in  his  arms,  inert  and  dumb,  feeling  in  the  short  gasps  that 
caught  his  breath  how  he  struggled  for  speech  and  failed,  then 
strove  again.  At  last  his  voice  came — short,  spasmodic  sentences 
breaking  or  broken  by  like  spans  of  silence: 

"Oh,  my  darling,  my  darling,  remember!  .  .  .  remember!  .  .  . 
whatever  it  is  ...  it  shall  not  come  between  us  ...  it  shall 
not  ...  it  shall  not.  .  .  .  Oh,  my  dear!  .  .  .  give  me  time, 
and  I  shall  speak  ...  if  I  could  only  say  at  once  ...  in  one 
word  .  .  .  could  only  understand  .  .  .  that  is  all  ...  to  under- 
stand. .  .  ."  He  relaxed  his  hold  upon  her;  but  she  held  to  him, 
or  she  might  have  fallen,  so  weak  was  she,  and  so  unsteady  was 
the  room  and  all  in  it  to  her  sight.  The  image  of  him  that  she 
saw  seemed  dim  and  in  a  cloud,  as  he  pressed  his  hands  upon  his 
eyes  and  stood  for  a  moment  speechless;  then  struggled  again  to 
find  words  that  for  another  moment  would  not  come,  caught  in 
the  gasping  of  his  breath.  Then  he  got  a  longer  breath,  as  for 
ease,  and  drawing  her  face  towards  his  own — and  this  time  the 
touch  of  his  hand  was  tender  as  a  child's — he  kissed  it  repeatedly 
— kissed  her  eyes,  her  cheeks,  her  lips.  And  in  his  kiss  was 
security  for  her,  safe  again  in  the  haven  of  his  love,  come  what 
might.  She  felt  how  it  brought  back  to  her  the  breath  she  knew 
would  fail  her,  unless  her  heart,  that  had  beaten  so  furiously  a 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  505 

moment  since,  and  then  died  away,  should  resume  its  life.  The 
room  became  steady,  and  she  saw  his  face  and  its  pallor  plainly, 
and  knew  that  in  a  moment  she  should  find  her  voice.  But  he 
spoke  first,  again. 

"That  is  what  I  want,  dear  love — to  understand.  Help  me  to 
understand,"  he  said.  And  then,  as  though  feeling  for  the  first 
time  how  she  was  clinging  to  him  for  support,  he  passed  his  arm 
round  her  gently,  guiding  her  to  sit  down.  But  he  himself  re- 
mained standing  by  her,  as  though  physically  unaffected  by  the 
storm  of  emotion,  whatever  its  cause,  that  had  passed  over  him. 
Then  Rosalind  found  her  voice. 

"Gerry  darling — let  us  try  and  get  quiet  over  it.  After  all, 
we  are  both  here."  As  she  said  this  she  was  not  very  clear  about 
her  own  meaning,  but  the  words  satisfied  her.  "I  see  you  have 
remembered  more,  but  I  cannot  tell  how  much.  Now  try  and 
tell  me — have  you  remembered  all  ?" 

"I  think  so,  darling."  He  was  speaking  more  quietly  now, 
as  one  docile  to  her  influence.  His  manner  gave  her  strength  to 
continue. 

"Since  you  left  Mr.  Pilkington — your  friend  at  the  hotel — 
didn't  you  say  the  name  Pilkington?" 

"No — there  was  no  Pilkington!  Oh  yes,  there  was! — a  friend 
of  Diedrich's.  .  .  ." 

"Has  it  come  back,  I  mean,  since  you  left  the  house?  Who  is 
Diedrich?" 

"Stop  a  bit,  dearest  love!  I  shall  be  able  to  tell  it  all  directly." 
She,  too,  was  glad  of  a  lull,  and  welcomed  his  sitting  down  beside 
her  on  the  bed-end,  drawing  her  face  to  his,  and  keeping  it  with 
the  hand  that  was  not  caressing  hers.  Presently  he  spoke  again, 
more  at  ease,  but  always  in  the  undertone,  just  above  a  whisper, 
that  meant  the  consciousness  of  Sally,  too,  near.  Rosalind  said, 
"She  won't  hear,"  and  he  replied,  "No;  it's  all  right,  I  think," 
and  continued: 

"Diedrich  Kruetzkammor — he's  Diedrich — don't  you  re- 
im-mber?  Of  course  you  do!  ...  I  heard  him  down  on  the 
beach  to-day  singing.  I  wanted  to  go  to  him  at  once,  but  I  had 
to  think  of  it  first,  so  I  came  home.  Then  I  settled  to  go  to  him 
at  the  hotel.  I  had  not  remembered  anything  then — anything 
to  speak  of — I  had  not  remembered  IT.  Now  it  is  all  back  upon 


506  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

me,  in  a  whirl."  He  freed  the  hand  that  held  hers  for  a  moment, 
and  pressed  his  fingers  hard  upon  his  eyes;  then  took  her  hand 
again,  as  before.  "I  wanted  to  see  the  dear  old  fellow  and  talk 
over  old  times,  at  'Frisco  and  up  at  the  Gold  River — that,  of 
course!  But  I  wanted,  too,  to  make  him  repeat  to  me  all  the 
story  I  had  told  him  of  my  early  marriage — oh,  my  darling! — 
our  marriage,  and  I  did  not  know  it!  I  know  it  now — I  know 
it  now." 

Rosalind  could  feel  the  thrill  that  ran  through  him  as  his 
hand  tightened  on  hers.  She  spoke,  to  turn  his  mind  for  a 
moment.  "How  came  Baron  Kreutzkammer  at  St.  Sennans?" 

"Diedrich?  He  has  a  married  niece  living  at  Canterbury. 
Don't  you  remember?  He  told  you  and  you  told  me.  .  .  ." 
Rosalind  had  forgotten  this,  but  now  recalled  it.  "Well,  we 
talked  about  the  States — all  the  story  I  shall  have  to  tell  you, 
darling,  some  time;  but,  oh  dear,  how  confused  I  get!  That 
wasn't  the  first.  The  first  was  telling  him  my  story — the  acci- 
dent, and  so  on — and  it  was  hard  work  to  convince  him  it  was 
really  me  at  Sonnenberg.  That  was  rather  a  difficulty,  because 
I  had  sent  him  in  the  name  I  had  in  America,  and  he  only  saw 
an  old  friend  he  thought  was  dead.  All  that  was  a  trifle;  but,  oh, 
the  complications!  .  .  ." 

"What  was  the  name  you  had  in  America?" 

Fenwick  answered  musingly,  "Harrisson,"  and  then  paused 
before  saying,  "No,  I  had  better  not  .  .  ."  and  leaving  the  sen- 
tence unfinished.  She  caught  his  meaning,  and  said  no  more. 
After  all,  it  could  matter  very  little  if  she  never  heard  his  Ameri- 
can experiences,  and  the  name  Harrisson  had  no  association  for 
her.  She  left  him  to  resume,  without  suggestion. 

"He  might  have  reminded  me  of  anything  that  happened  in  the 
States,  and  I  should  just  have  come  back  here  and  told  it  you, 
because,  you  see,  I  should  have  been  sure  it  was  true,  and  no 
dream.  It  was  India.  I  had  told  him  all,  don't  you  see?  And 
I  got  him  to  repeat  it,  and  then  it  all  came  back — all  at  once,  the 
moment  I  saw  it  was  you,  my  darling — you  yourself !  It  all  be- 
came quite  easy  then.  It  was  us — you  and  me!  I  know  rtnow — 
I  know  it  now!" 

"But,  dearest,  what  made  you  see  that  it  was  us?" 

"Why,  of  course,  because  of  the  name!    He  told  me  all  I  had 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  507 

told  him  from  the  beginning  in  German.  We  always  spoke  Ger- 
man. He  could  not  remember  your  first  name,  but  he  remem- 
bered your  mother's — it  had  stayed  in  his  mind — because  of  the 
German  word  Nachtigall  being  so  nearly  the  same.  As  he  said 
the  word  my  mind  got  a  frightful  twist,  and  I  thought  I  was  mad. 
I  did,  indeed,  my  dearest  love — raving  mad!" 

"And  then  you  knew  it?" 

"And  then  I  knew  it.  I  nearly  fainted  clean  off,  and  he  went 
for  brandy;  but  I  came  round,  and  the  dear  old  boy  saw  me  to 
this  door  here.  It  has  all  only  just  happened."  He  remained 
silent  again  for  a  little  space,  holding  her  hand,  and  then  said 
suddenly:  "It  has  happened,  has  it  not?  Is  it  all  true,  or  am  I 
dreaming  ?" 

"Be  patient,  darling.  It  is  all  true — at  least,  I  think  so.  It 
is  all  true  if  it  is  like  this,  because  remember,  dear,  you  have 
told  me  almost  nothing.  ...  I  only  know  that  it  has  come  back 
to  you  that  I  am  Eosey  and  that  you  are  Gerry — the  old  Rosey 
and  Gerry  long  ago  in  India.  .  .  ."  She  broke  down  over  her 
own  words,  as  her  tears,  a  relief  in  themselves,  came  freely,  taxing 
her  further  to  keep  her  voice  under  for  Sally's  sake.  It  was 
only  for  a  moment;  then  she  seemed  to  brush  them  aside  in  an 
effort  of  self-mastery,  and  again  began,  dropping  her  voice  even 
lower.  "It  is  all  true  if  it  is  like  this.  I  came  out  to  marry  you 
in  India  .  .  .  my  darling!  .  .  .  and  a  terrible  thing  happened 
to  me  on  the  way  .  .  .  the  story  you  know  more  of  now  than  I 
could  tell  you  then  .  .  .  for  how  could  I  tell  it  .  .  .  think?  .  .  ." 

Her  husband  started  up  from  her  side  gasping,  beating  his 
head  like  a  madman.  She  was  in  terror  lest  she  had  done  wrong 
in  her  speech.  "Gerry,  Gerry !"  she  appealed  to  him  in  a  scarcely 
raised  voice,  "think  of  Sally!"  She  rose  and  went  to  him,  re- 
peating, "Think  of  Sally!"  then  drew  him  back  to  his  former 
place.  His  breath  went  and  came  heavily,  and  his  forehead  was 
drenched  with  sweat,  as  in  epilepsy;  but  the  paroxysm  left  him 
as  he  sank  back  beside  her,  saying  only,  "My  God!  that  mis- 
creant !"  but  showing  that  he  had  heard  her  by  the  force  of  the 
constraint  he  put  upon  his  voice.  It  gave  her  courage  to  go  on. 

"I  could  not  get  it  told  then.  I  did  not  know  the  phrases — 
and  you  were  so  happy,  my  darling — so  happy  when  you  met 
me  at  the  station!  Oh,  how  could  I?  But  I  was  wrong.  I 


508  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

ought  not  to  have  let  you  marry  me,  not  knowing.  And  then  .  .  . 
it  seemed  deception,  and  I  could  not  right  it.  .  .  ."  Her  voice 
broke  again,  as  she  hid  her  face  on  his  shoulder ;  but  she  knew  her 
safety  in  the  kiss  she  felt  on  her  free  hand,  and  the  gentleness  of 
his  that  stroked  her  hair.  Then  she  heard  his  almost  whispered 
words  above  her  head,  close  to  her  ear: 

"Darling,  forgive  me — forgive  me!  It  was  /  that  was  in  fault. 
I  might  have  known.  .  .  ." 

"Gerry,  dear  ...  no!  ..." 

"Yes,  I  might.  There  was  a  woman  there — had  been  an 
officer's  wife.  She  came  to  me  and  spoke  rough  truths  about 
it — told  me  her  notion  of  the  tale  in  her  own  language.  'Put 
her  away  from  you,'  she  said,  'and  you  won't  get  another  like 
her,  and  won't  deserve  her!'  And  she  was  right,  poor  thing! 
But  I  was  headstrong  and  obstinate,  and  would  not  hear  her.  Oh, 
my  darling,  how  we  have  paid  for  it!" 

"But  you  have  found  me  again,  dear  love!"  He  did  not 
answer,  but  raised  up  her  face  from  his  shoulder,  parting  the 
loose  hair  tenderly — for  it  was  all  free  on  her  shoulders — and 
gazing  straight  into  her  eyes  with  an  expression  of  utter  bewilder- 
ment. "Yes,  darling,  what  is  it?"  said  she,  as  though  he  had 
spoken. 

"I  am  getting  fogged!"  he  said,  "and  cannot  make  it  out.  Was 
it  pure  accident?  Surely  something  must  have  happened  to  bring 
it  about." 

"Bring  what  about?" 

"How  came  we  to  find  each  other  again,  I  mean?" 

"Oh,  I  see!  Pure  accident,  I  should  say,  dear!  Why  not? 
It  would  not  have  happened  if  it  had  not  been  possible.  Thank 
God  it  did !" 

"Thank  God  it  did!  But  think  of  the  strangeness  of  it  all! 
How  came  Sally  in  that  train  ?" 

"Why  not,  darling?  Where  else  could  she  have  been?  She 
was  coming  back  to  tea,  as  usual." 

"And  she  put  me  in  a  cab — bless  her! — she  and  Conrad  Vere- 
ker — and  brought  me  home  to  you.  But  did  you  know  me  at 
once,  darling?" 

"At  once." 

"But  why  didn't  you  tell  me?" 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  509 

"If  you  had  shown  the  slightest  sign  of  knowing  me  I  should 
have  told  you,  and  taken  my  chance;  but  you  only  looked  at  me 
and  smiled.,  and  never  knew  me!  Was  mine  a  good  plan?  At 
least,  it  has  answered."  A  clasp  and  a  kiss  was  the  reply.  She 
was  glad  that  he  should  choose  the  line  of  conversation,  and  did 
not  break  into  the  pause  that  followed.  The  look  of  fixed  be- 
wilderment on  his  face  was  painful,  but  she  did  not  dare  any 
suggestion  of  guidance  to  his  mind.  She  had  succeeded  but  ill 
before  in  going  back  to  the  cause  of  their  own  early  severance. 
Yet  that  was  what  she  naturally  had  most  at  heart,  and  longed 
to  speak  of.  Could  she  have  chosen,  she  would  have  liked  to 
resume  it  once  for  all,  in  spite  of  the  pain — to  look  the  dreadful 
past  in  the  face,  and  then  agree  to  forget  it  together.  She  was 
hungry  to  tell  him  that  even  when  he  broke  away  from  her  that 
last  time  she  saw  him  at  Umballa — broke  away  from  her  so 
roughly  that  his  action  had  all  the  force  and  meaning  of  a  blow — 
she  only  saw  his  image  of  the  wrong  she  had  done,  or  seemed  to 
have  done  him;  that  she  had  nothing  for  him  through  it  all  but 
love  and  forgiveness.  At  least,  she  would  have  tried  to  make 
sure  that  he  had  been  able  to  connect  and  compare  the  tale  she 
had  told  him  since  their  reunion  with  his  new  memory  of  the  facts 
of  twenty  years  ago.  But  she  dared  say  nothing  further  as  yet. 
For  his  part,  at  this  moment,  he  seemed  strangely  willing  to  let 
all  the  old  story  lapse,  and  to  dwell  only  on  the  incredible  chance 
that  had  brought  them  again  together.  All  that  eventful  day 
our  story  began  with  had  leaped  into  the  foreground  of  his  mind. 

Presently  he  said,  still  almost  whispering  hoarsely,  with  a 
constant  note  of  amazement  and  something  like  panic  in  his 
voice:  "If  it  hadn't  happened — the  accident — I  suppose  I  should 
have  gone  back  to  the  hotel.  And  what  should  I  have  done  next? 
I  should  never  have  found  you  and  Sally.  .  .  ." 

"Were  you  poor,  Gerry  darling?" 

"Fright fully  rich!  Gold-fields,  mining-place  up  the  Yu-kon. 
Near  the  Arctic  Circle."  He  went  on  in  a  rapid  undertone,  as 
if  he  were  trying  to  supply  briefly  what  he  knew  the  woman  be- 
side him  must  be  yearning  to  know,  if  not  quite  unlike  other 
women.  "I  wasn't  well  off  before — didn't  get  on  at  the  Bar  at 
St.  Louis — but  not  poor  exactly.  Then  I  made  a  small  pile  cat- 
tle-ranching in  Texas,  and  somehow  went  to  live  at  Quebec. 


510  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

There  were  a  lot  of  French  Canadians  I  took  to.  Then  after  that, 
'Frisco  and  the  gold.  .  .  ." 

"Gerry  dear!" 

"Yes,  love,  what?" 

"Have  you  any  relations  living  in  England?" 

"Heaps,  but  I  haven't  spoken  to  one  of  them  for  years  and 
years — not  since  then.  One  of  them's  a  Bart,  with  a  fungus  on 
his  nose  in  Shropshire.  He's  an  uncle.  Then  there's  my  sister, 
if  she's  not  dead — my  sister  Livy.  She's  Mrs.  Huxtable.  I  fancy 
they  all  think  I'm  dead  in  the  bush  in  Australia.  I  had  a  narrow 
squeak  there.  .  .  ." 

"Now,  Gerry  darling,  I'll  tell  you  what  I  want  you  to  do.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  dear,  I  will." 

"You  can't  tell  me  all  these  things  now,  and  you'll  be  ill;  so  lie 
down  on  the  bed  there,  and  I'll  sit  by  you  till  you  go  to  sleep. 
Or  look,  you  get  to  bed  comfortably,  and  I'll  be  back  in  a  few 
minutes  and  sit  by  you.  Just  till  you  go  off.  Now  do  as  I  tell 
you." 

He  obeyed  like  a  child.  It  was  wonderful  how,  in  the  return- 
ing power  of  her  self-command,  she  took  him,  as  it  were,  in  hand, 
and  rescued  him  from  the  tension  of  his  bewilderment.  Apart 
from  the  fact  that  the  fibre  of  her  nature  was  exceptionally  strong, 
her  experience -of  this  last  hour  had  removed  the  most  part  of  the 
oppression  that  had  weighed  her  down  for  more  than  a  twelve- 
month— the  doubt  as  to  which  way  a  discovery  of  his  past  would 
tell  on  her  husband's  love  for  her.  She  had  no  feeling  now  but 
anxiety  on  his  behalf,  and  this  really  helped  her  towards  facing 
the  situation  calmly.  All  things  do  that  take  us  out  of  ourselves. 

She  stood  again  a  moment  outside  Sally's  door  to  make  sure 
she  was  not  moving,  then  went  to  her  own  room,  not  sorry  to  be 
alone.  She  wanted  a  pause  for  the  whirl  in  her  brain  to  stop,  for 
the  torrent  of  new  event  that  had  rushed  in  upon  it  to  find  its 
equilibrium.  If  Gerry  fell  asleep  before  she  returned  to  him  so 
much  the  better!  She  did  not  even  light  her  candle,  preferring 
to  be  in  the  dark. 

But  this  did  not  long  defer  her  return  to  her  husband's  room. 
A  very  few  minutes  in  the  darkness  and  the  silence  of  her  own 
were  enough  for  her,  and  she  was  grateful  for  both.  Then  she 
went  back,  to  find  him  in  bed,  sitting  up  and  pressing  his  fingers 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  511 

on  his  eyes,  as  one  does  when  suffering  from  nervous  headache. 
But  he  disclaimed  any  such  feeling  in  answer  to  her  inquiry. 
She  sat  down  beside  him,  holding  his  hand,  just  as  she  had  done 
in  the  night  of  the  storm,  and  begged  him  for  her  sake  and  his 
own  to  try  to  sleep.  It  would  all  seem  so  much  easier  and  clearer 
in  the  morning. 

Yes,  he  would  sleep,  he  said.  And,  indeed,  he  had  resolved 
to  affect  sleep,  so  as  to  induce  her  to  go  away  herself  and  rest. 
But  it  was  not  so  easy.  Half-grasped  facts  went  and  came — 
recollections  that  he  knew  he  should  before  long  be  able  to  marshal 
in  their  proper  order  and  make  harmonious.  For  the  time  being, 
though  they  had  not  the  nightmare  character  of  the  recurrences 
he  had  suffered  from  before  his  memory-revival,  they  stood  be- 
tween him  and  sleep  effectually.  But  he  could  and  would 
simulate  sleep  directly,  for  Rosalind's  sake.  He  had  looked  at 
his  watch  and  seen  that  it  was  near  two  in  the  morning.  Yes, 
he  would  sleep;  but  he  must  ask  one  question,  or  lose  his  reason 
if  she  left  him  alone  with  it  unanswered. 

"Rosey  darling!" 

"What,  dearest?" 

"We'll  forget  the  old  story,  won't  we,  and  only  think  of  now? 
That's  the  right  way  to  take  it,  isn't  it?" 

She  kissed  his  face  as  she  answered,  just  as  she  might  have 
kissed  a  child.  "Quite  right,  dear  love,"  she  said;  "and  now 
go  to  sleep.  Or  if  you  must  talk  a  little  more,  talk  about  Conrad 
and  Sally." 

"Ah  yes!"  he  answered;  "that's  all  happiness.  Conrad  and 
Sally!  But  there's  a  thing  .  .  ." 

"What  thing,  dear?     What  is  it?" 

"I  shall  ask  it  you  in  the  end,  so  why  not  now?"  She  felt  in 
his  hand  a  shudder  that  ran  through  him,  as  his  hold  on  her 
fingers  tightened. 

"So  why  not  now?"  she  repeated  after  him.    "Why  hesitate?" 

The  tremor  strengthened  in  her  hand  and  was  heard  in  his 
voice  plainly  as  he  answered  with  an  effort:  "What  became  of 
the  baby?" 

"Wliat  became  of  the  baby!"  There  was  a  new  terror  in 
Rosalind's  voice  as  she  repeated  the  words — a  fear  for  his  reason. 
"'What  baby?" 


512  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"The  baby — his  baby — his  horrible  baby!" 

"Gerry  darling!  Gerry  dearest!  do  think.  .  .  ."  His  puzzled 
eyes,  bloodshot  in  his  white  face,  turned  full  upon  her;  but  he 
remained  silent,  waiting  to  hear  more.  "You  have  forgotten, 
darling,"  she  said  quietly. 

His  free  hand  that  lay  on  the  coverlid  clenched,  and  a  spasm 
caught  his  arm,  as  though  it  longed  for  something  to  strike  or 
strangle.  "No,  no!"  said  he;  "I  am  all  right.  I  mean  that 
damned  monster's  baby.  There  was  a  baby?"  His  voice  shook 
on  these  last  words  as  though  he,  too,  had  a  fear  for  his  own 
reason.  His  face  flushed  as  he  awaited  her  reply. 

"Oh,  Gerry  darling!  but  you  have  forgotten.  His  baby  was 
Sally— my  Sallykin!" 

For  it  was  absolutely  true  that,  altho.ugh  he  had  as  complete 
a  knowledge,  in  a  certain  sense,  of  Sally's  origin  as  the  well- 
coached  student  has  of  the  subject  he  is  to  answer  questions  in, 
he  had  forgotten  it  under  the  stress  of  his  mental  trial  as  readily 
as  the  student  forgets  what  his  mind  has  only  acquiesced  in  for 
its  purpose,  in  his  joy  at  recovering  his  right  to  ignorance.  Sally 
had  an  existence  of  her  own  quite  independent  of  her  origin. 
She  was  his  and  Eosalind's — a  part  of  their  existence,  a  necessity. 
It  was  easy  and  natural  for  him  to  dissociate  the  living,  breathing 
reality  that  rilled  so  much  of  their  lives  from  its  mere  beginnings. 
It  was  less  easy  for  Rosalind,  but  not  an  impossibility  altogether, 
helped  by  the  forgiveness  for  the  past  that  grew  from  the  soil  of 
her  daughter's  love. 

"You  had  forgotten,  dear,"  she  repeated;  <fbut  you  know  now." 

"Yes,  I  had  forgotten,  because  of  Sally  herself;  but  she  is  my 
daughter  now.  .  .  ." 

She  waited,  expecting  him  to  say  more;  but  he  did  not  speak 
again.  As  soon  as  he  was,  or  seemed  to  be,  asleep,  she  rose  quietly 
and  left  him. 

She  was  so  anxious  that  no  trace  of  the  tempest  that  had  passed 
over  her  should  be  left  for  Sally  to  see  in  the  morning  that  she 
got  as  quickly  as  possible  to  bed;  and,  with  a  little  effort  to  tran- 
quillise  her  mind,  soon  sank  into  a  state  of  absolute  oblivion.  It 
was  the  counterswing  of  the  pendulum — Nature's  protest  against 
a  strain  beyond  her  powers  to  bear,  and  its  remedy. 


CHAPTER  XLIV 

OF  A  CONTRACT  JOB  FOR  REPAIRS.  HOW  FENWICK  HAD  ANOTHER  SLEEP- 
LESS NIGHT  AFTER  ALL.  WHICH  IS  WHICH,  NOW  OR  TWENTY  ODD 
YEARS  AGO?  HOW  SALLY  FOLLOWED  JEREMIAH  OUT.  WHAT  A  LOT 
OF  TALK  ABOUT  A  LIFE-BELT! 

A  COLOURLESS  dawn  chased  a  grey  twilight  from  the  sea  and 
white  cliffs  of  St.  Sennans,  and  a  sickly  effort  of  the  sun  to  rise 
visibly,  ending  above  a  cloud-bank  in  a  red  half-circle  that  seemed 
a  thing  quite  unconnected  with  the  struggling  light,  was  baffled 
by  a  higher  cloud-bank  still  that  came  discouragingly  from  the 
west,  and  quenched  the  hopes  of  the  few  early  risers  who  were 
about  as  St.  Sennans  tower  chimed  six.  The  gull  that  flew  high 
above  the  green  waste  of  white-flecked  waters  was  whiter  still 
against  the  inky  blue  of  the  cloud-curtain  that  had  disallowed 
the  day,  and  the  paler  vapour-drifts  that  paused  and  changed  and 
lost  themselves  and  died;  but  the  air  that  came  from  the  sea  was 
sweet  and  mild  for  the  time  of  year,  and  the  verdict  of  the  coast- 
guardsman  at  the  flagstaff,  who  in  pursuance  of  his  sinecure  had 
seen  the  night  out,  was  that  the  day  was  pretty  sure  to  bo  :.n 
uncertain  sart,  with  little  froshets  on  the  water,  like  over  yander. 
He  seemed  to  think  that  a  certainty  of  uncertainty  had  all  the 
value  of  a  forecast,  and  was  as  well  satisfied  with  his  report  as  he 
was  that  he  had  not  seen  a  smuggler  through  the  telescope  lie 
closed  as  he  uttered  it. 

"Well,  I  should  judge  it  might  be  fairly  doubtful,"  was  the 
reply  of  the  man  he  was  speaking  with.  It  was  the  man  who  had 
"Elinor"  and  "Bessie"  tattooed  on  his  arm.  They  were  not 
legible  now,  as  a  couple  of  life-belts,  or  hencoops,  as  they  are 
sometimes  called,  hung  over  the  arm  and  hid  them.  The  boy 
Benjamin  was  with  his  father,  and  carried  a  third.  An  explana- 
tion of  them  came  in  answer  to  interrogation  in  the  eye  of  the 
coastguard.  "Just  to  put  a  touch  of  new  paint  on  'em  against 
the  weather."  The  speaker  made  one  movement  of  his  head  say 

513 


514  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

that  they  had  come  from  the  pier-end,  and  another  that  he  had 
taken  them  home  to  repaint  by  contract. 

"What  do  you  make  out  of  S.  S.  P.  C.?"  the  coastguard  asked, 
scarcely  as  one  who  had  no  theory  himself,  more  as  one  archae- 
ologist addressing  another,  teeming  with  deference,  but  ready  for 
controversy.  The  other  answered  with  some  paternal  pride: 

"All,  there  now!  Young  Benjamin,  he  made  that  good,  and 
asked  for  to  make  it  red  in  place  of  black  himself!  Didn't  ye, 
ye  young  sculping?  St.  Sennans  Pier  Company,  that's  all  it 
comes  to,  followed  out.  But  I'm  no  great  schoolmaster  myself, 
and  that's  God's  truth."  Both  contemplated  the  judicious  res- 
toration with  satisfaction;  and  young  Benjamin,  who  had  turned 
purple  under  publicity,  murmured  that  it  was  black  afower.  He 
didn't  seem  to  mean  anything,  but  to  think  it  due  to  himself  to 
say  something,  meaning  or  no.  The  coastguardsman  merely  said, 
"Makes  a  tidy  job !"  and  the  father  and  son  went  on  their  way 
to  the  pier. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  before,  this  coastguard  had  looked  after 
the  visitor  in  a  blue  serge  suit  up  at  Lobjoit's,  who  had  passed  him 
going  briskly  towards  the  fishing-quarter.  He  had  recognised 
him  confidently,  for  he  knew  Fenwick  well,  and  saw  nothing 
strange  in  his  early  appearance.  Now  that  he  saw  him  returning, 
and  could  take  full  note  of  him,  he  almost  suspected  he  had  been 
mistaken,  so  wild  and  pallid  was  the  face  of  this  man,  who, 
usually  ready  with  a  light  word  for  every  chance  encounter — even 
with  perfect  strangers — now  passed  him  by  ungreeted,  and  to  all 
seeming  unconscious  of  his  presence.  The  coastguard  was  for  a 
moment  in  doubt  if  he  should  not  follow  him,  inferring  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  delirium  from  his  aspect ;  but  seeing  that  he 
made  straight  for  the  pier,  and  knowing  that  young  Benjamin's 
father  was  more  familiar  with  him  than  himself,  he  was  contented 
to  record  in  thought  that  that  was  a  face  with  a  bad  day  ahead, 
and  leave  it. 

For  Gerry,  when  Rosalind  left  him,  was  rash  in  assuming  he 
could  let  her  do  so  safely.  His  well-meant  pretext  of  sleep  was 
not  destined  to  grow  into  a  reality.  He  had  really  believed  that 
it  would,  so  soothing  was  the  touch  of  her  hand  in  his  own.  The 
moment  he  was  alone  his  mind  leapt,  willy-nilly,  to  the  analysis 
of  one  point  or  other  in  the  past  that  had  just  come  back  to  him. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  515 

He  tried  to  silence  thought,  and  to  sleep,  knowing  that  his  best 
hope  was  in  rest;  but  each  new  effort  only  ended  in  his  slipping 
back  to  what  he  had  just  dismissed.  And  that  terrible  last  in- 
terview with  Rosey  at  Umballa,  when  he  parted  from  her,  as  he 
thought,  never  to  see  her  again,  was  the  Rome  to  which  all  the 
roads  of  recollection  led.  Each  involuntary  visit  there  had  its 
rencherissement  on  the  previous  one,  and  in  the  end  the  image 
of  that  hour  became  a  brain-oppression,  and  wrote  the  word 
"fever"  large  on  the  tablets  of  his  apprehension. 

He  knew  now  it  was  not  to  be  sleep;  he  knew  it  as  he  sat  up 
in  bed  feeling  his  pulse,  and  stimulating  it  with  his  anxiety  that 
it  should  go  slow.  Was  there  nothing  he  could  take  that  would 
make  him  sleep?  Certainly  he  knew  of  nothing,  anywhere,  ex- 
cept it  was  to  be  found  by  waking  Rosalind,  probably  sound  asleep 
by  now.  Out  of  the  question!  Oh,  why,  why,  with  all  the  warn- 
ing he  had  had,  had  he  neglected  to  provide  himself  with  a 
mysterious  thing  known  to  him  all  his  life  as  a  soo tiling-draught? 
It  would  have  been  so  useful  now,  and  Conrad  would  have  defined 
it  down  to  the  prosaic  requirements  of  pharmacy.  But  it  was  too 
late! 

So  long  as  her  hand  was  in  his.  so  long  as  her  lips  were  near 
his  own,  what  did  it  matter  what  he  recollected?  The  living 
present  cancelled  the  dead  past.  But  to  be  there  alone  in  the 
dark,  with  the  image  of  that  Rosalind  of  former  years  clinging 
to  him,  and  crying  for  forgiveness  because  his  mind,  warped 
against  her  by  a  false  conception  of  the  truth,  could  not  forgive; 
to  be  defenceless  against  her  last  words,  coming  through  the  long 
interval  to  him  again  just  as  he  heard  them,  twenty  years  ago, 
bringing  back  the  other  noises  of  the  Indian  night — the  lowing 
of  the  bullocks  in  the  compound,  the  striking  of  the  hour  on  the 
Kuteherry  gongs,  the  grinding  of  the  Persian  wheels  unceasingly 
drawing  water  for  the  irrigation  of  the  fields — to  be  exposed  to  this 
solitude  and  ever-growing  imagination  was  to  become  the  soil  for 
a  self-sown  crop  of  terrors — fear  of  frvor.  fear  of  madness,  fear  at 
the  very  least  of  perturbation  such  that  Sally  might  come,  through 
it,  to  a  knowledge  that  had  to  be  kept  from  her  at  all  costs. 

He  lighted  his  candle  with  a  cautious  match,  and  found  what 
might  be  a  solace — a  lucky  newspaper  of  the  morning.  If  only 
he  could  read  it  without  audible  rustling,  unheard  by  the  sleepers! 


516  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

The  print  was  almost  too  small  to  be  read  by  the  light  of  a 
single  candle;  but  there  were  the  usual  headings,  the  usual  ranks 
of  capitals  that  tell  us  so  quick  that  there  is  nothing  we  shall  care 
about  in  the  pale  undecipherable  paragraphs  below,  and  that  we 
have  spent  our  halfpenny  in  vain.  There  was  the  usual  young 
lady  who  had  bought,  or  was  trying  on,  a  large  hat,  and  whose 
top-story  above,  in  profile,  had  got  so  far  ahead  of  her  other  stories 
below.  There  were  the  consignments  of  locust-flights  of  boots, 
for  this  young  lady's  friends,  with  heels  in  the  instep.  And  all 
the  advertisements  that  some  one  must  believe,  or  they  would  not 
pay  for  insertion;  but  that  we  ignore,  incredulous.  Fenwick  tried 
hard,  for  his  own  sake,  to  make  the  whole  thing  mean  something, 
but  his  dazed  brain  and  feverish  eyes  refused  to  respond  to  his 
efforts,  and  he  let  the  paper  go,  and  gave  himself  up,  a  prey  to  his 
own  memories.  After  all,  the  daylight  was  sure  to  come  in  the 
end  to  save  him. 

He  tried  hard  to  reason  with  himself,  to  force  himself  to  feel 
the  reality  of  his  own  belief  that  all  was  well;  for  he  had  no  doubt 
of  it,  as  an  abstract  truth.  It  was  the  power  of  getting  comfort 
from  it  that  was  wanting.  If  only  his  heart  could  stop  thumping 
and  his  brain  burning,  he  would  have  done  the  rejoicing  that 
Rosalind  was  there,  knowing  all  he  knew,  and  loving  him;  that 
Sally  was  there,  loving  him  too,  but  knowing  nothing,  and  need- 
ing to  know  nothing;  that  one  of  his  first  greetings  in  the  day  to 
come  would  be  from  Conrad  Vereker,  probably  too  much  intox- 
icated with  his  own  happiness  to  give  much  attention  to  what  he 
was  beginning  to  acknowledge  was  some  kind  of  physical  or 
nervous  fever.  If  he  could  only  sleep! 

But  he  could  not — could  hardly  close  his  eyes.  He  said  to 
himself  again  and  again  that  nothing  was  the  matter;  that,  if 
anything,  he  and  Rosey  were  better  off  than  they  had  been  yet; 
that  they  had  passed  through  a  land  of  peril  to  a  great  deliver- 
ance. But  he  did  not  believe  his  own  assurance,  and  the  throng 
of  memories  that  his  feverish  condition  would  not  let  sleep,  or 
that  were  its  cause,  came  on  him  more  and  more  thickly 
through  all  those  hours  of  the  dreary  night.  They  came,  too, 
with  a  growing  force,  each  one  as  it  returned  having  more  the 
character  of  a  waking  dream,  vivid  almost  to  the  point  of  reality. 
But  all  ended  alike.  He  always  found  himself  breaking  away 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  517 

from  Rosey  in  the  veranda  in  the  bungalow  at  Umballa,  and  could 
hear  again  her  cry  of  despair:  "Oh,  Gerry,  Gerry!  It  is  not  as 
you  think.  Oh,  stay,  stay!  Give  me  a  chance  to  show  you  how 
I  love  you!"  The  tramp  of  his  horse  as  he  rode  away  from  his 
home  and  that  white  figure  left  prostrate  in  the  veranda  above 
him,  became  a  real  sound  that  beat  painfully  upon  his  ears;  and 
the  voice  of  the  friend  he  sought — an  old  soldier  in  camp  at 
Sabatoo,  where  he  rode  almost  without  a  halt — as  he  roused  him 
in  the  dawn  of  the  next  day,  came  to  him  again  almost  as  though 
spoken  in  the  room  beside  him:  "Left  your  wife,  Palliser!  My 
God,  sir!  what's  to  come  next?"  And  then  the  wicked  hardness 
of  his  own  heart,  and  his  stubborn  refusal  to  listen  to  the  angry 
remonstrance  that  followed.  "I  tell  you  this,  young  man!  the 
man's  a  fool — a  damned  fool — that  runs  from  the  woman  who 
loves  him!"  And  the  asseveration  that  the  speaker  would  say  the 
same  if  she  was  anything  short  of  the  worst  character  in  camp, 
only  in  slightly  different  words.  His  remorse  for  his  own  ob- 
duracy, and  the  cruelty  of  his  behaviour  then;  his  shame  when 
he  thought  of  his  application,  months  later,  to  the  Court  at  La- 
hore— for  "relief"  from  Rosey:  just  imagine  it! — these  were  bad 
enough  to  think  back  on,  even  from  the  point  of  view  of  his 
previous  knowledge;  but  how  infinitely  worse  when  he  thought 
what  she  had  been  to  him,  how  she  had  acted  towards  him  two 
years  ago! 

Even  the  painful  adventure  he  could  now  look  back  to  clearly, 
and  with  a  rather  amused  interest,  as  to  an  event  with  no  lacera- 
tion in  it — his  wandering  in  an  Australian  forest,  for  how  many 
days  he  could  not  say,  and  his  final  resurrection  at  a  town  a  hun- 
dred miles  from  his  starting-point — even  this  led  him  back  in  the 
end  to  the  old  story.  The  whole  passed  through  his  mind  like 
the  scenes  of  a  drama — his  confidence,  having  lost  the  track,  that 
his  horse,  left  to  himself,  would  find  it  again;  his  terror  when, 
coming  back  from  a  stone's-throw  off,  he  found  the  tree  deserted 
he  had  tied  his  horse  to;  his  foolish  starting  off  to  catch  him, 
when  the  only  sane  course  was  to  wait  for  his  return.  But  the 
second  act  of  the  drama  took  his  mind  again  to  Rosey  in  her 
loneliness;  for  when  he  was  found  by  a  search-party  at  the  foot 
of  a  telegraph-post  he  had  used  his  last  match  to  burn  down,  he 
was  inarticulate,  and  seemed  to  give  his  name  as  Harrisson.  As 


518  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

he  slowly  recovered  sense  and  speech  at  the  telegraph-station — 
for  the  interruption  of  the  current  had  been  his  cry  for  help  to 
its  occupants — he  heard  himself  addressed  by  the  name  and  saw 
the  mistake;  but  he  did  not  correct  it,  being,  indeed,  not  sorry  for 
an  incognito,  sick  of  his  life,  as  it  were,  and  glad  to  change  his 
identity.  But  how  if  Rosey  wrote  to  him  then — think  of  it! — 
under  his  old  name?  Fancy  her  when  the  time  came  for  a 
possible  reply,  with  who  could  say  what  of  hope  in  it!  Fancy 
her  many  decisions  that  it  was  still  too  soon  for  an  answer,  fol- 
lowed by  as  many  others  as  time  went  on  that  it  was  not  too 
late!  If  he  had  received  such  a  letter  from  her  then,  might  it 
not  all  have  been  different?  May  she  not  have  written  one?  He 
had  talked  so  little  with  her;  nothing  forbade  the  idea.  And  so 
his  mind  travelled  round  with  monotonous  return,  always  to  that 
old  time,  and  those  old  scenes,  and  all  the  pain  of  them. 

It  was  curious — he  noted  the  oddity  himself — that  his  whole 
life  in  America  took  the  drama  character,  and  he  became  the 
spectator.  He  never  caught  himself  playing  his  own  part  over 
again,  with  all  its  phases  of  passion  or  excitement,  as  in  the' 
earlier  story.  In  that,  his  identification  of  himself  with  his  ,past 
grew  and  grew,  and  as  his  fever  increased  through  the  small 
hours  of  the  morning,  got  more  and  more  the  force  of  a  waking 
dream.  And  when  the  dawn  came  at  last,  and  the  gleam  from 
the  languid  sun  followed  it,  the  man  who  got  up  and  looked  out 
towards  its  great  blue  bank  of  cloud  was  only  half  sure  he  was 
not  another  former  self,  looking  out  towards  another  sea,  twenty 
years  ago,  to  see  if  he  could  identify  the  ship  that  was  to  take 
him  from  Kurachi  to  Port  Jackson. 

What  did  it  all  mean?  Yes,  sure  enough  he  had  taken  his 
passage,  and  to-morrow  leagues  of  sea  would  lie  between  him 
and  Rosey.  That  would  end  it  for  ever.  No  reconciliations,  no 
repentance  then!  .  .  .  Was  there  not  still  time?  a  chance  if  he 
chose  to  catch  at  it?  Puny  irresolution!  Shake  it  all  off,  and 
have  done  with  it.  ...  He  shuddered  as  he  thought  through  his 
old  part  again,  and  then  came  back  with  a  jerk  to  the  strange 
knowledge  that  he  was  opening  a  closed  book,  a  tragedy  written 
twenty  years  ago;  and  that  there,  within  a  few  feet  of  where  he 
gazed  with  a  jaded  sight  out  to  the  empty  sea,  was  Rosey  her- 
self, alive  and  breathing ;  and  in  an  hour  or  two  he  was  to  see  her, 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  519 

feel  the  touch  of  her  hand  and  lips,  be  his  happy  self  again  of 
three  days  only  gone  by,  if  he  could  but  face  masterfully  the 
strange  knowledge  this  mysterious  revival  of  a  former  self  had 
brought  upon  him.  And  there  was  Sally.  .  .  . 

But  at  the  name,  as  it  came  to  his  mind,  came  also  the  shock 
of  another  mystery — who  and  what  was  Sally? 

Let  him  lie  down  again  and  try  to  think  quietly.  Was  not  this 
part  of  his  delirium?  Could  he  have  got  the  story  right?  Surely! 
Was  it  not  of  her  that  Rosey  had  said,  only  a  few  hours  since, 
"His  baby  was  Sally — my  Sallykin"?  And  was  he  not  then  able 
to  reply  collectedly  and  with  ease,  "She  is  my  daughter  now,"  and 
to  feel  the  power  of  his  choice  that  it  should  be  so?  But  the 
strength  of  Rosalind  was  beside  him  then,  and  now  he  was  here 
alone.  He  beat  off — fought  against — that  hideous  fatherhood  of 
Sally's  that  he  could  not  bear,  that  image  that  he  felt  might  drive 
him  mad.  Oh,  villain,  villain!  Far,  far  worse  to  him  was — 
perforce  must  be — this  miscreant's  crime  than  that  mere  murder 
that  shook  Hamlet's  reason  to  its  foundation.  He  dared  not 
think  of  it  lest  he  should  cry  out  aloud.  But,  patience!  Only 
two  or  three  hours  more,  and  Rosalind  would  be  there  to  help  him 
to  bear  it.  ...  What  a  coward's  thought! — to  help  him  to  bear 
\vli:it  she  herself  had  borne  in  silence  for  twenty  years! 

Would  he  not  be  better  up,  now  that  it  was  light?  Of  course! 
But  how  be  sure  he  should  not  wake  them? 

Well,  the  word  was  caution;  he  must  be  very  quiet  about  it, 
that  was  all.  He  slipped  on  his  clothes  without  washing — it  al- 
ways makes  a  noise — ran  a  comb  through  the  tangled  hair  his 
pillow-tossings  of  four  hours  had  produced,  and  got  away 
stealthily  without  accident,  or  meeting  any  early  riser,  speech 
with  whom  would  have  betrayed  him. 

He  had  little  trouble  with  the  door-fastenings,  that  often  per- 
plex us  in  a  like  case,  blocking  egress  with  mysterious  mecha- 
nisms. Housebreakers  were  rare  in  St.  Sennans.  He  had  more 
fear  his  footsteps  would  be  audible;  but  it  seemed  not,  and  he 
walked  away  towards  the  cliff  pathway  unnoticed. 

The  merpussy  waked  to  a  consciousness  of  happiness  undefined, 
a  sense  of  welcome  to  the  day.  What  girl  would  not  have  done 
so,  under  her  circumstances?  For  Sally  had  no  doubt  in  her 


520  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

mind  of  her  own  satisfaction  at  the  outcome  of  yesterday.  She 
might  have  treated  the  feelings  and  experience  of  other  lovers — 
regular  ones,  prone  to  nonsense — with  contempt,  but  she  never 
questioned  the  advantages  of  her  own  position  as  compared  with 
theirs.  Her  feast  was  better  cooked,  altogether  more  substantial 
and  real  than  the  kickshaws  and  sweetmeats  she  chose  to  ascribe 
to  the  menus  of  Arcadia.  Naturally;  because  see  what  a  much 
better  sort  Conrad  was!  It  was  going  to  be  quite  a  different  kind 
of  thing  this  time.  And  as  for  the  old  Goody,  she  was  not  half 
bad.  Nothing  was  half  bad  in  Sally's  eyes  that  morning,  and 
almost  everything  was  wholly  good. 

She  had  slept  so  sound  she  was  sure  it  was  late.  But  it  was 
only  half-past  six,  and  the  early  greetings  of  Mrs.  Lobjoit  below 
were  not  to  the  baker,  nor  even  to  the  milk,  but  to  next  door, 
which  was  dealing  with  the  question  of  its  mat  and  clean  step 
through  the  agency  of  its  proprietress,  whose  voice  chimed  cheer- 
fully with  Mrs.  Lobjoit's  over  the  surprise  of  the  latter  rinding  her 
street  door  had  been  opened,  and  that  some  one  had  already  passed 
out.  For  Mrs.  Lobjoit  had  made  that  sure,  the  night  before,  that 
she  had  "shot  to"  the  bottom  bolt  that  would  shet,  because  she  had 
ignored  as  useless  the  top  bolt  that  ivouldn't  shet — the  correlation 
of  events  so  often  appealed  to  by  witnesses  under  examination; 
which  Law,  stupidly  enough,  prides  itself  on  snubbing  them  for. 
Further,  Mrs.  Lobjoit  would  have  flown  to  the  solution  that  it 
was  her  gentleman  gone  out,  only  that  it  was  quite  into  the  night 
before  they  stopped  from  talking. 

Sally  heard  this  because  she  had  pulled  down  the  top  sash  of 
her  window  to  breathe  the  sea  air,  regardless  of  the  fact  she  well 
new,  and  described  thus — that  the  sash-weight  stuck  and  clunkled 
and  wouldn't  come  down.  She  decided  against  running  the  risk 
of  disturbing  Jeremiah  on  the  strength  of  Mrs.  Lobjoit's  im- 
pressions; although,  if  he  had  gone  out,  she  certainly  would 
follow  him.  But  she  slipped  on  a  dressing-gown  and  went  half- 
way downstairs,  to  see  if  his  hat  was  still  on  its  peg.  It  was 
gone.  So  she  went  back  to  her  room,  and  dressed  furtively.  Be- 
cause if  they  had  been  talking  late  into  the  night,  it  would  be 
just  as  well  for  her  mother  to  have  her  sleep  out. 

But  she  had  hardly  finished  washing  when  she  became  aware  of 
a  footstep  outside — Jeremiah's  certainly.  She  went  to  the  win- 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  521 

dow,  saw  him  approach  the  house,  look  up  at  it,  but  as  though  he 
did  not  recognise  that  she  was  there,  and  then  turn  away  towards 
the  flagstaff  and  the  old  town.  It  was  odd  and  unlike  him,  and 
Sally  was  alarmed.  Besides,  how  white  he  looked! 

Bear  this  in  mind,  that  Sally  knew  absolutely  nothing  of  the 
cataclysm  of  revived  memory  in  Jeremiah.  Remember  that  the 
incident  of  the  galvanic  battery  at  the  pier-end  is  only  four  days 
old.  Do  not  be  misled  by  the  close  details  we  have  given  of  these 
four  days. 

Sally's  alarm  at  the  haggard  look  of  her  stepfather's  face  took 
away  her  breath;  at  least,  she  did  not  find  her  voice  soon  enough 
for  him  to  hear  her  call  out — she  did  not  like  to  shout  loud 
because  of  her  mother — as  he  turned  away.  Or  it  seemed  so,  for 
that  was  the  only  way  she  could  account  for  his  walking  away 
so  abruptly.  In  her  hurry  to  get  dressed  and  follow  him,  she 
caught  up  an  undergarment  that  lay  on  the  floor,  without  seeing 
that  her  own  foot  was  on  the  tape  that  was  to  secure  it,  and  a 
rip  and  partial  disruption  was  the  consequence.  Never  mind,  it 
would  hold  up  till  she  came  in.  Or,  if  it  didn't,  where  was  that 
safety-pin  that  was  on  her  dressing-table  yesterday?  Not  there? 
Again,  never  mind!  She  would  do,  somehow.  She  hurried  on 
her  clothes,  and  her  hat  and  waterproof,  and  left  the  house,  going 
quickly  on  what  she  supposed  to  be  the  track  of  Jeremiah,  who 
was,  by  now,  no  longer  visible. 

But  she  caught  sight  of  him  returning,  while  she  was  still  two 
or  three  minutes'  walk  short  of  the  flagstaff  he  was  approaching 
from  the  other  side.  He  would  stop  to  talk  with  the  coastguard. 
He  always  did.  Surely  he  would,  this  time.  But  no — he  didn't. 

He  may  have  spoken,  but  he  did  not  stop.  So  Sally  noted  as 
she  hesitated  an  instant,  seeing  him  turn  off  at  an  angle  and  go 
towards  the  pier.  There  was  a  shorter  cut  to  the  pier,  without 
going  to  the  flagstaff.  Sally  turned  herself,  and  took  it.  She 
would  catch  him  as  he  came  back  from  the  pier-end,  if  he  was 
going  to  walk  along  it. 

She  saw  him  as  she  descended  the  slope  that,  part  pathway  and 
part  steps,  led  down  towards  the  sea.  He  walked  straight  towards 
the  pier,  passing  as  he  went  a  man  and  boy,  who  were  carrying 
what  she  took,  at  that  distance,  for  well-made  coils  of  rope ;  and 
then,  arriving  at  the  pier-turnstile  just  as  they  did,  pass  them, 


and,  leaving  them  apparently  in  conversation  with  the  gatekeeper, 
walk  steadily  on  towards  the  pier-end. 

"I  shouldn't  call  the  paint  properly  hardened  on  myself.  Nor 
won't  be  yet-a-piece,  if  you  ask  my  opinion."  It  was  young 
Benjamin's  father  said  these  words  to  the  veteran  in  charge  of 
the  pier-turnstile;  who,  as  an  early  bird,  was  counting  his  tickets, 
so  to  speak,  before  they  were  hatched — his  actual  professional 
cabinet-seance  not  having  begun.  For  the  pier  wasn't  open  yet, 
and  his  permission  to  Fenwick  to  pass  the  open  side-gate  was  an 
indulgence  to  an  acquaintance. 

His  reply  to  the  speaker  was  that  he  must  bide  awhile  in 
patience,  then.  Paint  was  good  to  dry  while  the  grass  grew,  and 
there  was  plenty  else  to  fret  about  for  them  as  wanted  it.  He 
seemed  only  to  mention  this  from  consideration  of  the  wants  of 
others.  He  either  had  plenty  to  fret  about,  or  was  happier  with- 
out anything.  He  ended  with,  "What  have  you  to  say  to  that, 
Jake  Tracy?"  showing  that  the  father  of  Benjamin  was  Jacob, 
following  precedent. 

But  Jacob  preferred  not  to  be  led  away  into  ethics.  "I  should 
stand  'em  by,  in  the  shadow,  for  the  matter  of  a  day  or  two,"  said 
he.  "In  yander."  And  the  life-belts  being  safely  disposed  of, 
he  added:  "I  thought  to  carry  back  number  fower  from  the  pier- 
end,  and  make  a  finish  of  the  job.  But  looking  to  the  condition 
of  this  paint,  maybe  better  leave  her  for  service.  She'll  do  as  well 
next  week."  But  the  moralist  inclined  to  make  a  finish  of  the 
job.  Who  was  going  overboard  afore  the  end  of  next  week? 
And  supposing  they  did,  the  resources  of  civilisation  wouldn't  be 
exhausted,  for  we  could  throw  'em  a  clean  one  paint  or  no. 

"Send  your  lad  to  fetch  her  along,  Jake.  I'll  make  myself 
answerable."  And  young  Benjamin,  confirmed  by  a  nod  from  his 
father,  departed  for  the  mysteriously  feminine  hencoop. 

Just  as  the  boy  turned  to  go,  Fenwick  came  up,  and,  paying  no 
attention  to  greetings  from  .the  two  men,  passed  through  the 
side-gate  and  walked  rather  briskly  away  along  the  pier.  Each 
of  the  men  looked  at  the  other,  as  though  asking  a  question.  But 
neither  answered,  and  then  both  said,  "Queer,  too!"  A  nascent 
discussion  of  whether  one  or  other  should  not  follow  him — for 
the  look  of  his  face  had  gone  home  to  both,  as  he  was,  of  course, 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  523 

well  known  to  them — was  cut  short  by  Jacob  Tracy  saying, 
"Here's  his  daughter  coming  to  see  for  him."  And,  just  after, 
Sally  had  passed  them,  leaving  them  pleasantly  stirred  by  the 
bright  smile  and  eye-flash  that  seemed  this  morning  brighter 
than  ever.  The  boy  shouted  something  from  the  pier-end,  to 
which  his  father's  shouted  reply  was  that  he  must  bide  a  minute 
and  he  would  come  to  see  himself. 

"The  yoong  beggar's  got  the  use  of  his  eyes,"  he  said,  not 
hurrying.  "I'll  go  bail  he'll  find  her.  She's  there  all  right,  I 
suppose?"  He  was  still  referring  to  the  hencoop,  not  to  any  lady. 

"Ah,  she's  there,  quite  safe.  You'd  best  step  along  and  find 
her.  Boys  are  boys,  when  all's  told." 

But  Jacob  wanted  Benjamin  to  distinguish  himself,  and  still 
didn't  hurry.  The  strange  appearance  of  Mrs.  Lobjoit's  gentle- 
man supplied  materials  for  chat.  Presently  his  son  shouted 
again,  and  he  answered,  "Not  there,  is  she?  I'll  come."  He 
walked  away  towards  the  pier-end  just  as  Sally,  who  had  fancied 
Jeremiah  would  be  somewhere  alongside  of  the  pagoda-building 
that  nearly  covered  it,  came  back  from  her  voyage  of  exploration, 
and  looked  down  the  steps  to  the  under-platform,  that  young 
Benjamin  had  just  come  up  shouting. 

What  little  tilings  life  and  death  turn  on  sometimes! 


CHAPTER  XLV 

OF  CONRAD  VEREKER'S  REVISION  OP  PARADISE,  AND  OF  FENWICK'S  HIGH 
FEVER.  OF  AN  ENGLISH  OFFICER  WHO  WAVERED  AT  BOMBAY,  AND 
OF  FENWICK'S  SURPRISE-BATH  IN  THE  BRITISH  CHANNEL.  WHY  HE 
DID  NOT  SINK.  THE  ELLEN  JANE  OF  ST.  SENNANS.  ONLY  SALLY  IS 
IN  THE  WATER  STILL.  MORE  BOATS.  FOUND ! 

FENWICK,  haunted  by  the  phantoms  of  his  own  past — always, 
as  his  fever  grew,  assuming  more  and  more  the  force  of  reali- 
ties— but  convinced  of  their  ephemeral  nature,  and  that  the 
crisis  of  this  fever  would  pass  and  leave  him  free,  had  walked 
quickly  along  the  sea  front  towards  the  cliff  pathway.  Had  Dr. 
Conrad  seen  him  as  he  passed  below  his  window  and  looked  up 
at  it,  he  would  probably  have  suspected  something  and  followed 
him.  And  then  the  events  of  this  story  would  have  travelled 
a  different  road.  But  Vereker,  possessed  by  quite  another  sort 
of  delirium,  had  risen  even  earlier — almost  with  the  dawn — 
and,  taking  Sally's  inaccessibility  at  that  unearthly  hour  for 
granted,  had  gone  for  a  long  walk  over  what  was  now  to  him  a 
land  of  enchantment — the  same  ground  he  and  Sally  had  passed 
over  on  the  previous  evening.  He  and  his  mother  would  be 
on  their  way  to  London  in  a  few  hours,  and  he  would  like  to  see 
the  landmarks  that  were  to  be  a  precious  memory  for  all  time 
yet  once  more  while  he  had  the  chance.  Who  could  say  that  he 
would  ever  visit  St.  Sennans  again? 

If  Fenwick,  in  choosing  this  direction  first,  had  a  half-formed 
idea  of  attracting  the  doctor's  attention,  the  appearance  of 
Mrs.  Iggulden's  shuttered  parlour-window  would  have  discour- 
aged him.  It  told  a  tale  of  a  household  still  asleep,  and  quite 
truly  as  far  as  she  herself  was  concerned.  For  Dr.  Conrad, 
as  might  have  been  expected,  was  very  late  in  coming  home  the 
night  before;  and  his  mother's  peculiarity  of  not  being  able  to 
sleep  if  kept  up  till  eleven,  combined  with  the  need  of  a  state- 
ment of  her  position,  a  declaration  of  policy,  and  almost  a  budget, 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  525 

if  not  quite,  on  the  subject  of  her  son's  future  housekeeping;, 
having  resulted  in  what  threatened  to  become  an  all-night  sit- 
ting, the  good  woman's  dozes  and  repentances,  with  jerks,  on  the 
stairs  overnight,  had  produced  their  consequences  in  the  morn- 
ing. Fenwick  passed  the  house,  and  walked  on  as  far  as  where 
the  path  rose  to  the  cliffs ;  then  turned  back,  and,  pausing  a  mo- 
ment, as  we  have  seen,  under  Sally's  window,  failed  in  his 
dreamy  state  to  see  her  as  she  looked  over  the  cross-bar  at  him, 
and  then  went  on  towards  the  old  town.  It  may  be  she  was  not 
very  visible ;  the  double  glasses  of  an  open  sash-window  are  almost 
equal  to  opacity.  But  even  with  that,  the  extreme  aberration 
of  Fenwick's  mind  at  the  moment  is  the  only  way  to  account  for 
his  not  seeing  her. 

In  fact,  his  mental  perturbation  came  and  went  by  gusts,  as 
his  memory  caught  at  or  relinquished  agitating  points  of  rem- 
iniscence, always  dwelling  on  that  parting  from  Rosalind  at 
Umballa.  His  brain  and  nervous  system  were  in  a  state  that 
involved  a  climax  and  reaction;  and,  unhappily,  this  climax, 
during  which  his  identification  of  his  present  self  with  his  mem- 
ory of  its  past  was  intensified  to  the  point  of  absolute  hallu- 
cination, came  at  an  inopportune  moment.  If  he  could  only 
have  kept  the  phantoms  of  his  imagination  at  bay  until  he  met 
Sally!  But,  really,  speculation  on  so  strange  a  frame  of  mind 
is  useless ;  we  can  only  accept  the  facts  as  they  stand. 

He  had  no  recollection  afterwards  of  what  followed  when 
he  passed  the  house  and  failed  to  see  Sally  or  hear  her  call  out 
to  him.  For  the  time  being  he  was  back  again  in  his  life  of 
twenty  years  ago.  Those  who  find  this  hard  to  believe  may 
see  no  way  of  accounting  for  what  came  about  but  by  ascribing 
to  Fenwick  an  intention  of  suicide.  For  our  part  we  believe 
him  to  have  been  absolutely  incapable  of  such  an  act  from  a 
selfish  impulse;  and,  moreover,  it  is  absurd  to  impute  to  him 
such  a  motive,  at  this  time,  however  strongly  he  might  have 
been  impelled  towards  it  by  discovering  the  injustice  and  cruelty 
of  his  own  unforgiveness  towards  his  young  wife  at  some  pre- 
vious time — as,  for  instance,  in  America — when  she  herself  was 
beyond  his  reach,  and  a  recantation  of  his  error  impossible. 
Unless  we  accept  his  conduct  as  the  result  of  a  momentary 
dementia,  produced  by  overstrain,  it  must  remain  inexplicable. 


526  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

It  appeared  to  him,  so  far  as  he  was  afterwards  able  to  define 
or  record  it,  that  he  was  no  longer  walking  on  the  familiar  track 
between  the  few  lodging-houses  that  made  up  the  old  St.  Sen- 
nans,  and  the  still  older  fishing-quarter  near  the  jetty,  but  that 
he  was  again  on  his  way  from  Lahore  to  Kurachi,  from  which 
he  was  to  embark  for  a  new  land  where  his  broken  heart  might  do 
its  best  to  heal ;  for  if  ever  a  man  was  utterly  broken-hearted  it 
was  he  when  he  came  away  from  Lahore,  after  his  futile  attempt 
to  procure  a  divorce.  He  no  longer  saw  the  cold  northern  sea 
under  its  great  blue  cloud-curtain  that  had  shrouded  the  coming 
day;  nor  the  line  of  fishing-smacks,  beached  high  and  dry,  and 
their  owners'  dwellings  near  at  hand,  a  little  town  of  tar  and 
timber  in  behind  the  stowage-huts  of  nets  and  tackle,  nor  the 
white  escarpment  of  the  cliffs  beyond,  that  the  sea  had  worked 
so  many  centuries  to  plunder  from  the  rounded  pastures  of  the 
sheep  above.  He  no  longer  heard  the  music  of  the  waves  on 
the  shingle,  nor  the  cry  of  the  sea-bird  that  swept  over  them, 
nor  the  tinkle  of  the  sheep-bell  the  wind  knows  how  to  carry  so 
far  in  the  stillness  of  the  morning,  nor  the  voices  of  the  fisher- 
children  playing  in  the  boats  that  one  day  may  bear  them  to 
their  death.  His  mind  was  far  away  in  the  Indian  heat,  parching 
and  suffocated  on  the  long  railway  journey  from  Lahore  to 
Kurachi,  scarcely  better  when  he  had  reached  his  first  boat  that 
was  to  take  him  to  Bombay,  to  embark  again  a  day  or  two  later 
for  Australia.  How  little  he  had  forgotten  of  the  short  but 
tedious  delay  in  that  chaotic  emporium  of  all  things  European 
and  Asiatic,  that  many-coloured  meeting-ground  of  a  thousand 
nationalities!  How  little,  that  the  whole  should  come  back  to 
him  now,  and  fill  his  brain  with  its  reality,  till  the  living  present 
grew  dim  and  vanished;  reviving  now  and  again,  as  fiction,  read 
in  early  years,  revives  with  a  suggested  doubt — is  it  true  or 
false? 

He  sat  again  on  the  Esplanade  at  Bombay,  as  the  sun  van- 
ished in  a  flood  of  rosy  gold,  and  released  the  world  from  his 
heat.  He  felt  again  the  relief  of  the  evening  wind ;  heard  again 
the  chat  of  a  group  of  English  officers  who  sipped  sherry-cobblers 
at  a  table  a  few  paces  off.  "I  always  change  my  mind,"  said 
one  of  them,  ''backwards  and  forwards  till  the  last  minute ;  then 
I  make  it  the  last  one."  He  quite  understood  this  man's  speech, 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  527 

and  thought  how  like  himself !  For  from  the  time  he  left  Lahore 
he,  too,  had  gone  backwards  and  forwards,  now  resolving  to 
return,  come  what  might,  now  telling  himself  firmly  there  was 
no  remedy  but  in  distance  apart,  and  all  there  might  be  of 
oblivion.  Was  there  not  yet  time?  He  could  still  go  back, 
even  now.  But  no;  the  old  obduracy  was  on  him.  Rosey  had 
deceived  him! 

Then  he  seemed  to  have  come  again  to  his  last  minute.  Once 
he  was  fairly  on  the  ship  that  was  even  now  coaling  for  her 
voyage,  once  the  screw  was  on  the  move  and  the  shore-lights 
vanishing,  the  die  would  be  cast.  The  stars  that  he  and  Rosey 
had  seen  in  that  cool  English  garden  that  night  he  met  her  first 
would  vanish,  too,  and  a  world  would  be  between  them.  Still, 
the  hour  had  not  come;  it  was  not  too  late  yet.  But  still  the 
inveterate  thought  came  back — she  had  deceived  him. 

So  his  delirium  ended  as  its  prototype  of  over  twenty  years 
ago  had  ended.  He  hardened  his  heart,  thrust  aside  all  thought 
of  forgiveness  and  repentance,  and  went  resolutely  down  to  the 
quay,  as  he  thought,  to  embark  on  the  little  boat  for  the  ship, 
and  so  practically  put  all  thought  of  hesitation  and  return  out 
of  his  mind.  This  moment  was  probably  what  would  have  been 
the  crisis  of  his  fever,  and  it  was  an  evil  hour  for  him  in  which 
the  builder  of  the  pier  at  St.  Sennans  made  it  so  like  the  plat- 
form of  that  experience  of  long  ago.  But  the  boat  that  he  saw 
before  him  as  he  stepped  unhesitatingly  over  its  edge  was  only 
the  image  of  a  distempered  brain,  and  in  an  instant  he  was 
struggling  with  the  cold,  dark  water.  A  sudden  shock  of  chill, 
an  intolerable  choking  agony  of  breath  involuntarily  hold,  an 
instantaneous  dissipation  of  his  dream,  the  natural  result  of  the 
shock,  and  Fenwick  knew  himself  for  what  he  was,  and  fought 
the  cruel  water  in  his  despair.  Even  so  a  drowning  man  fights 
who  in  old  failures  to  learn  swimming  has  just  mastered  its  bar- 
est rudiments.  A  vivid  pageant  rushed  across  his  mind  of  all  the 
consequences  of  what  seemed  to  him  now  his  inevitable  death, 
clearest  of  all  a  sad  vision  of  Sally  and  Rosalind  returning  to 
their  home  alone — the  black  dresses  and  the  silence.  He  found 
voice  for  one  long  cry  for  help,  without  a  hope  that  it  could  be 
heard  or  that  help  could  be  at  hand. 

But  he  was  neither  unseen  nor  unheard,  as  you  will  know  if 


528  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

we  have  not  failed  in  showing  the  succession  of  events.  Sallv 
never  hesitated  an  instant  as  she  caught  sight  of  the  delirious 
man's  involuntary  plunge  into  the  green  waves  that  had  no 
terrors  for  her.  She  threw  off  as  she  ran,  fast,  fast  down  the 
wooden  stairway,  the  only  clothes  she  could  get  rid  of — her  hat 
and  light  summer  cloak — and  Avent  straight,  with  a  well-calcu- 
lated dive,  to  follow  him  and  catch  him  as  he  rose.  If  only  she 
did  not  miss  him !  Let  her  once  pinion  his  arms  from  behind, 
and  she  would  get  him  ashore  even  if  no  help  came.  Why,  there 
was  no  sea  to  speak  of ! 

The  man  Jacob  Tracy,  the  father  of  Benjamin,  saw  something 
to  quicken  his  speed  as  he  walked  along  the  pier  to  help  in  the 
discovery  of  the  life-belt.  Why  did  the  swimming  young  lady 
from  Lobjoit's  want  to  be  rid  of  her  wrap-up  at  that  rate  as  she 
turned  so  sharp  round  to  run  down  the  ladder?  He  increased 
a  brisk  walk  to  a  run  as  the  lad,  who  had  followed  the  young 
lady  down  the  steps,  came  running  up  again;  for  there  was 
hysterical  terror  in  his  voice — he  was  a  mere  boy — as  he  shouted 
something  that  became,  as  distance  lessened,  "In  t'  wa-ater !  in  t' 
wa-ater!  in  t'  wa-ater!  in  t'  wa-ater!"  And  he  was  waving 
something  in  his  hand — a  lady's  hat  surely ;  for  with  an  instinct 
of  swift  presence  of  mind — a  quality  that  is  the  breath  of  life  to 
all  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  mariners  or  fisher-folk — 
he  had  seen  that  the  headgear  Sally  threw  away  would  tell  its 
tale  quicker  than  any  words  he  could  rely  on  finding. 

"Roon  smart,  yoong  Benjamin — roon  for  the  bo'ats  and  call 
out  'oars'!  Roon,  boy — you've  no  time  to  lose!"  And  as  the 
father  dashes  down  the  steps  he  spoke  of  as  "the  ladder"  the  son 
runs  for  all  he  is  worth  to  carry  the  alarm  to  the  shore.  He 
shouts,  "Oars,  oars,  oars !"  as  he  was  told.  But  it  is  not  needed, 
for  his  thought  of  bringing  up  the  hat  has  done  his  work  already 
for  him.  The  coastguard,  though  the  pier  itself  hid  the  two 
immersions  from  him,  is  quick  of  apprehension  and  ready  with 
his  glass,  and  has  seen  the  boy's  return  from  below;  and  at  the 
same  time  heard,  not  his  words,  but  the  terror  in  them,  and  by 
some  mysterious  agency  has  sent  a  flying  word  along  the  beach 
that  has  brought  a  population  out  to  help. 

A  bad  time  of  the  tide  to  get  a  boat  off  sharp,  and  a  long 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  529 

shelving  run  of  sandy  shingle  before  we  reach  the  sea;  for  all 
the  boats  are  on  the  upper  strand  of  the  beach,  above  the  last 
high-water  mark,  and  the  flow  of  the  tide  is  scarcely  an  hour 
old.  There  is  a  short  squat  cobble,  flat-bottomed  and  of  intoler- 
able weight,  down  near  the  waters,  and  its  owner  makes  for  it. 
Another  man  drives  him  out  seawards,  against  the  constant  lift 
of  breaking  waves,  large  enough  to  be  troublesome,  small  enough 
to  be  numerous.  They  give  no  chance  to  the  second  man  to 
leap  into  the  boat,  so  deep  has  he  to  go,  pushing  on  until  the 
pads  are  out  and  the  boat  controlled;  but  he  has  barely  time 
to  feel  the  underdraw  of  the  recoiling  wave  when  the  straight 
scour  of  a  keel  comes  down  along  the  sand  and  pebbles — the 
Ellen  Jane,  St.  Sennans — half-pushed,  half-borne  by  a  crew 
three  minutes  have  extemporised.  You  two  in  the  bows,  and 
you  two  astarn,  and  the  spontaneous  natural  leader — the  man  the 
emergency  makes — at  the  tiller-ropes,  and  Ellen  Jane  is  off,  well 
drenched  at  the  outset.  An  oar  swings  round  high  in  the  air, 
not  to  knock  one  of  you  two  astarn  into  the  water,  and  then, 
"Give  way!"  and  then  the  short,  quick  rhythm  of  the  stroke, 
and  four  men  at  their  utmost  stress,  each  knowing  life  and  death 
may  hang  upon  the  greatness  of  his  effort. 

The  cobble  is  soon  outshot,  but  its  owner  will  not  give  in. 
He  bears  away  from  the  course  of  the  boat  that  has  passed  him, 
to  seek  their  common  object  where  the  tide-drift  may  have  swept 
it,  beyond  some  light  craft  at  their  moorings  which  would  have 
hidden  it  for  a  while.  He  has  the  right  of  it  this  time,  for  as  he 
passes,  straining  at  his  sculls,  under  the  stern  of  a  pleasure- 
yacht  at  anchor,  his  eye  is  caught  by  a  black  spot  rising  on  a 
wave,  and  he  makes  for  it.  Not  too  fast  at  the  last,  though,  but 
cautiously,  so  as  to  grasp  the  man  with  the  life-belt  and  hold 
him  firm  till  help  shall  come  to  get  him  on  board.  He  might 
easily  have  overshot  him ;  but  he  has  him  now,  and  the  four-oar 
sights  him  as  she  swings  round  between  the  last-moored  boat 
and  the  pier ;  and  comes  apace,  the  quicker  for  the  tide. 

"What  is  it  ye  say,  master?  What  do  ye  make  it  out  the 
gentleman  says,  Peter?"  For  Fenwick,  hauled  on  board  the 
cobble  with  the  help  of  a  man  from  the  other  boat,  who  returns 
to  his  oar,  is  alive  and  conscious,  but  not  much  more.  A  brandy- 
flask  comes  from  somewhere  in  the  steerage,  where  a  mop  and  a 


530  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

tin  pot  and  a  boathook  live,  and  its  effect  is  good.  The  half- 
drowned  man  becomes  articulate  enough  to  justify  the  report. 
"It's  his  daughter  he's  asking  for — overboard,  too!"  and  then 
the  man  who  spoke  first  says:  "You  be  easy  in  your  mind, 
master;  we'll  find  her.  Bear  away  a  bit,  and  lie  to,  Tom." 
Tom  is  the  man  in  the  cobble,  and  he  does  as  he  is  bidden.  He 
ships  his  sculls  and  drifts,  watching  round  on  all  sides  for  what 
may  be  just  afloat  near  the  surface.  The  four-oar  remains,  and 
the  eyes  of  her  crew  are  straining  hard  to  catch  a  sight  of  any- 
thing that  is  not  mere  lift  and  ripple  of  a  wave. 

Then  more  boats  one  after  another,  and  more,  and  the  gather- 
ing crowd  that  lines  the  shore  sees  them  scatter  and  lie  to,  some 
way  apart,  to  watch  the  greater  space  of  water.  All  drift,  be- 
cause they  know  that  what  they  seek  is  drifting,  too,  and  that 
if  they  move  they  lose  their  only  chance ;  for  the  thing  they  have 
to  find  is  so  small,  so  small,  and  that  great  waste  of  pitiless  sea 
is  so  large.  It  is  their  only  chance. 

The  crowd,  always  growing,  moves  along  the  beach  as  the 
flotilla  of  drifting  boats  move  slowly  with  the  tide.  They  can 
hear  the  shouting  from  boat  to  boat,  but  catch  but  little  of  the 
words.  They  follow  on,  with  little  speech  among  themselves, 
and  hope  dying  slowly  out  of  their  hearts.  Gradually  towards 
the  jetty,  where  the  girl  they  are  seeking  sat,  only  a  few  days 
since,  beside  the  man  whose  heart  the  memory  of  yesterday  is 
still  rejoicing;  the  only  trouble  of  whose  unconscious  soul  is  the 
thought  that  he  and  she  must  soon  be  parted,  however  short  the 
term  of  their  separation  may  be.  He  will  know  more  soon. 

Suddenly  the  shouting  increases  in  the  boats,  and  excited 
voices  break  the  silence  on  the  shore.  It  won't  do  to  hope  too 
much,  but  surely  all  the  boats  are  thickening  to  one  spot.  .  .  . 
No,  it's  nothing!  .  .  .  Yes,  it  is — it  is  something — one  knows 
what — sighted  abaft  the  Ellen  Jane,  whose  steersman  catches  it 
with  a  boathook  as  the  oars  we  on  the  beach  saw  suddenly  drop 
back  water — slowly,  cautiously — and  only  wait  for  him  to  drag 
the  light  weight  athwart  the  gunwale  to  row  for  the  dear  life  to- 
wards the  town.  The  scattered  crowd  turns  and  comes  back, 
trampling  the  shingle,  to  meet  the  boat  as  she  lands,  and  follow 
what  she  brings  to  the  nearest  haven. 


CHAPTER  XLVI 

AN  ERRAND  IX  VAIN,  AND  HOW  DR.  CONRAD  CAME  TO  KNOW.      CONCERN- 
ING  LLOYD'S   COFFEEHOUSE,   AND  THE    BATTLE   OF    CAMPERDOWN. 

MARSHALL  HALL'S  SYSTEM  AND  SILVESTER'S.  SOCIAL  DISADVAN- 
TAGES. A  CHAT  WITH  A  CENTENARIAN,  AND  HOW  ROSALIND  CAME 
TO  KNOW.  THOMAS  LOCOCK  OF  ROCHESTER.  ONE  O'CLOCK ! 

"Is  that  you,  Dr.  Conrad?"  It  was  Rosalind  who  spoke, 
through  the  half-open  window  of  her  bedroom,  to  the  happy, 
expectant  face  of  the  doctor  in  the  little  front  garden  below. 
"I'm  only  just  up,  and  they're  both  gone  out.  I  shall  be  down 
in  a  few  minutes."  For  she  had  looked  into  her  husband's  room, 
and  then  into  Sally's,  and  concluded  they  must  have  gone  out 
together.  So  much  the  better !  If  Sally  was  with  him,  no  harm 
could  come  to  him. 

"I  don't  see  them  anywhere  about,"  said  the  doctor.  Sally 
had  not  been  gone  ten  minutes,  and  at  this  moment  had  just 
caught  sight  of  Fenwick  making  for  the  pier.  The  short  cut 
down  took  her  out  of  sight  of  the  house.  Rosalind  considered  a 
minute. 

"Very  likely  they've  gone  to  the  hotel — the  'beastly  hotel,'  you 
know."  There  is  the  sound  of  a  laugh,  and  the  caress  in  her 
voice,  as  she  thinks  of  Sally,  whom  she  is  quoting.  "Gerry 
found  a  friend  there  last  night — a  German  gentleman — who  was 
to  go  at  seven-fifty.  Very  likely  he's  walked  up  to  say  good- 
bye to  him.  Suppose  you  go  to  meet  them !  How's  Mrs.  Vere- 
ker  this  morning?" 

"Do  you  know,  I  haven't  seen  her  yet!  We  talked  rather 
late,  so  I  left  without  waking  her.  I've  been  for  a  walk." 

"Well,  go  and  meet  Gerry.  I  feel  pretty  sure  he's  gone  there." 
And  thereon  Dr.  Conrad  departed,  and  so,  departing  towards  the 
new  town,  lost  sight  for  the  time  being  of  the  pier  and  the  coast. 
He  went  by  the  steps  and  Albion  Villas,  and  as  he  caught  a 
glimpse  therefrom  of  the  pier-end  in  the  distance,  had  an  iin- 

531 


532  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

pression  of  a  man  running  along  it  and  shouting;  but  he  drew 
no  inferences,  although  it  struck  him  there  was  panic,  with  the 
energy  of  sudden  action,  in  this  man's  voice. 

He  arrived  at  the  hotel,  of  course  without  meeting  either  Sally 
or  Fenwick.  He  had  accepted  them  as  probably  there,  on  per- 
haps too  slight  evidence.  But  they  might  be  in  the  hotel.  Had 
the  German  gentleman  gone? — he  asked.  The  stony  woman  he 
addressed  replied  from  her  precinct,  with  no  apparent  con- 
sciousness that  she  was  addressing  a  fellow-creature,  that  No. 
148,  if  you  meant  him,  had  paid  and  gone  by  last  'bus.  She 
spoke  as  to  space,  but  as  one  too  indifferent  on  all  points  to  care 
much  who  overheard  her. 

Vereker  thanked  her,  and  turned  to  go.  As  he  departed  he 
caught  a  fragment  of  conversation  between  her  and  the  waiter 
who  had  produced  the  brandy  the  evening  before.  He  was  in 
undress  uniform — a  holland  or  white- jean  jacket,  and  a  red 
woollen  comforter.  He  had  lost  his  voice,  or  most  of  it,  and 
croaked;  and  his  cold  had  got  worse  in  the  night.  He  was 
shedding  tears  copiously,  and  wiping  them  on  a  cruet-stand  he 
carried  in  one  hand.  The  other  was  engaged  by  an  empty  coal- 
scuttle with  a  pair  of  slippers  in  it,  inexplicably. 

"There's  a  start  down  there.  Party  over  the  pier-end!  Dr. 
Maccoll  he's  been  'phoned  for." 

"Party  from  this  hotel?" 

"Couldn't  say.    Forcibly.    No  partic'lars  to  identify,  so  far." 

"They're  not  bringing  him  here?" 

"Couldn't  say,  miss;  but  I  should  say  they  wasn't  myself." 

"If  you  know  you  can  say.  Who  told  you,  and  what  did  he 
say?  Make  yourself  understood." 

"Dr.  Maccoll  he's  been  'phoned  for.  You  can  inquire  and  see 
if  I  ain't  right.  Beyond  that  I  take  no  responsibility." 

The  Lady  of  the  Bureau  came  out;  moved,  no  doubt,  by  an 
image  of  a  drowned  man  whose  resources  would  not  meet  the 
credits  she  might  be  compelled  to  give  him.  She  came  out  to 
the  front  through  the  swing-door,  looked  up  and  down  the  road, 
and  seemed  to  go  back  happier.  Dr.  Conrad's  curiosity  was 
roused,  and  he  started  at  once  for  the  beach,  but  absolutely 
without  a  trace  of  personal  misgiving.  No  doubt  the  tendency 
we  all  have  to  impute  public  mishaps  to  a  special  class  of  people 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  533 

outside  our  own  circle  had  something  to  do  with  this.  As  he 
passed  down  an  alley  behind  some  cottages — a  short  way  to  the 
pier — he  was  aware  of  a  boy  telling  a  tale  in  a  terrified  voice  to 
a  man  and  an  elderly  woman.  It  was  the  man  with  the  striped 
shirt,  and  the  boy  was  young  Benjamin.  He  had  passed  on  a 
few  paces  when  the  man  called  to  him,  and  came  running  after 
him,  followed  by  the  woman  and  boy. 

"I  ask  your  pardon,  sir — I  ask  your  pardon.  .  .  ."  What  he 
has  to  say  will  not  allow  him  to  speak,  and  his  words  will  not 
come.  He  turns  for  help  to  his  companion.  "You  tell  him, 
Martha  woman,"  he  says,  and  gives  in. 

"My  master  thinks,  sir,  you  may  find  something .  on  the 
beach.  .  .  ." 

"Something  on  the  beach!  .  .  ."  Fear  is  coming  into  Dr. 
Conrad's  face  and  voice. 

"Find  something  has  happened  on  the  beach.  But  they've 
got  him  out.  .  .  ." 

"Got  him  out!  Got  whom  out?  Speak  up,  for  Heaven's 
sake !" 

"It  might  be  the  gentleman  you  know,  sir,  and  .  .  ."  But 
the  speaker's  husband,  having  left  the  telling  to  his  wife,  un- 
fairly strikes  in  here,  to  have  the  satisfaction  of  lightening  the 
communication.  "But  he's  out  safe,  sir.  You  may  rely  on  the 
yoong  lad."  He  has  made  it  harder  for  his  wife  to  tell  the 
rest,  and  she  hesitates.  But  Dr.  Conrad  has  stayed  for  no  more. 
He  is  going  at  a  run  down  the  sloped  passage  that  leads  to  the 
sea.  The  boy  follows  him,  and  by  some  dexterous  use  of  private 
thoroughfares,  known  to  him,  but  not  to  the  doctor,  arrives  first, 
and  is  soon  visible  ahead,  running  towards  the  scattered  groups 
that  line  the  beach.  The  man  and  woman  follow  more  slowly. 

Few  of  those  who  read  this,  we  hope,  have  ever  had  to  face  a 
shock  so  appalling  as  the  one  that  Conrad  Vereker  sustained 
when  he  came  to  know  what  it  was  that,  was  being  carried  up 
the  beach  from  the  boat  that  had  just  been  driven  stern  on  to 
the  shingle,  as  he  emerged  to  a  full  view  of  the  sea  and  the 
running  crowd,  thickening  as  its  last  stragglers  arrived  to  meet  it. 
But  most  of  us  who  are  not  young  have  unhappily  had  some 
experience  of  the  sort,  and  many  will  recognise  (if  we  can  de- 
scribe it)  the  feeling  that  was  his  in  excess  when  a  chance  by- 


534  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

stander — not  unconcerned,  for  no  one  was  that — used  in  his  hear- 
ing a  phrase  that  drove  the  story  home  to  him,  and  forced  him 
to  understand.  "It's  the  swimming  girl  from  Lobjoit's,  and  she's 
drooned."  It  was  as  well,  for  he  had  to  know.  What  did  it  mat- 
ter how  he  became  the  blank  thing  standing  there,  able  to  say 
to  itself,  "Then  Sally  is  dead,"  and  to  attach  their  meaning  to 
the  words,  but  not  to  comprehend  why  he  went  on  living?  One 
way  of  learning  the  thing  that  closes  over  our  lives  and  veils 
the  sun  for  all  time  is  as  good  as  another;  but  how  came  he  to 
be  so  colourlessly  calm  about  it? 

If  we  could  know  how  each  man  feels  who  hears  in  the  felon's 
dock  the  sentence  of  penal  servitude  for  life,  it  may  be  we  should 
find  that  Vereker's  sense  of  being  for  the  moment  a  cold,  un- 
explained unit  in  an  infinite  unfeeling  void,  was  no  unusual 
experience.  But  this  unit  knew  mechanically  what  had  hap- 
pened perfectly  well,  and  its  duty  was  clear  before  it.  Just  half 
a  second  for  this  sickness  to  go  off,  and  he  would  act. 

It  was  a  longer  pause  than  it  seemed  to  him,  as  all  things 
appeared  to  happen  quickly  in  it,  somewhat  as  in  a  photographic 
life-picture  when  the  films  are  run  too  quick.  At  least,  that 
remained  his  memory  of  it.  And  during  that  time  he  stood  and 
wondered  why  he  could  not  feel.  He  thought  of  her  mother  and 
of  Fenwick,  and  said  to  himself  they  were  to  be  pitied  more 
than  he;  for  they  were  human,  and  could  feel  it — could  really 
know  what  jewel  they  had  lost — had  hearts  to  grieve  and  eyes 
to  weep  with.  He  had  nothing — was  a  stupid  blank!  Oh,  he 
had  been  mistaken  about  himself  and  his  love :  he  was  a  stone. 

A  few  moments  later  than  his  first  sight  of  that  silent  crowd 
— moments  in  which  the  world  had  changed  and  the  sun  had 
become  a  curse;  in  which  he  had  for  some  reason — not  grief, 
for  he  could  not  grieve — resolved  on  death,  except  in  an  event 
he  dared  not  hope  for — he  found  himself  speaking  to  the  men 
who  had  borne  up  the  beach  the  thing  whose  germ  of  life,  if  it 
survived,  was  his  only  chance  of  life  hereafter. 

"I  am  a  doctor;  let  me  come."  The  place  they  had  brought 
it  to  was  a  timber  structure  that  was  held  as  common  property 
by  the  fisher-world,  and  known  as  Lloyd's  Coffeehouse.  It  was 
not  a  coffeehouse,  but  a  kind  of  spontaneous  club-room,  where 
the  old  men  sat  and  smoked  churchwarden  pipes,  and  told  each 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  535 

other  tales  of  storm  and  wreck,  and  how  the  news  of  old  sea- 
battles  came  to  St.  Sennans  in  their  boyhood;  of  wives  made 
widows  for  their  country's  good,  and  men  all  sound  of  limb 
when  the  first  gun  said  "Death !"  across  the  water,  crippled  for 
all  time  when  the  last  said  "Victory!"  and  there  was  silence 
and  the  smell  of  blood.  Over  the  mantel  was  an  old  print  of 
the  battle  of  Camperdown,  with  three-deckers  in  the  smoke, 
flanked  by  portraits  of  Rodney  and  Nelson.  There  was  a  long 
table  down  the  centre  that  had  been  there  since  the  days  of 
Rodney,  and  on  this  was  laid  what  an  hour  ago  was  Sally ;  what 
each  man  present  fears  to  uncover  the  face  of,  but  less  on  his 
own  account  than  for  the  sake  of  the  only  man  who  seems  fear- 
less, and  lays  hands  on  the  cover  to  remove  it;  for  all  knew,  or 
guessed,  what  this  dead  woman  might  be — might  have  been — to 
this  man. 

"I  am  a  doctor ;  let  me  come." 

"Are  ye  sure  ye  know,  young  master?  Are  ye  sure,  boy?" 
The  speaker,  a  very  old  man,  interposes  a  trembling  hand  to 
save  Vereker  from  what  he  may  not  anticipate,  perhaps  has  it 
in  mind  to  beseech  him  to  give  place  to  the  local  doctor,  just 
arriving.  But  the  answer  is  merely,  "I  know."  And  the  hand 
that  uncovers  the  dead  face  never  wavers,  and  then  that  white 
thing  we  see  is  all  there  is  of  Sally — that  coil  and  tangle  of  black 
hair,  all  mixed  with  weed  and  sea-foam,  is  the  rich  mass  that 
was  drying  in  the  sun  that  day  she  sat  with  Fenwick  on  the 
beach ;  those  eyes  that  strain  behind  the  half-closed  eyelids  were 
the  merry  eyes  that  looked  up  from  the  water  at  the  boat  she 
dived  from  two  days  since;  those  lips  are  the  lips  the  man  who 
stands  beside  her  kissed  but  yesterday  for  the  first  time.  The 
memory  of  that  kiss  is  on  him  now  as  he  wipes  the  sea-slime  from 
them  and  takes  the  first  prompt  steps  for  their  salvation. 

The  old  Scotch  doctor,  who  came  in  a  moment  later,  wondered 
at  the  resolute  decision  and  energy  Vereker  was  showing.  He 
had  been  told  credibly  of  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  and  gave 
way  on  technical  points  connected  with  resuscitation,  surrender- 
ing views  he  would  otherwise  have  contended  for  about  Marshall 
Hall's  and  Silvester's  respective  systems.  Perhaps  one  reason 
for  this  was  that  auscultation  of  the  heart  convinced  him  that 
the  case  was  hopeless,  and  he  may  have  reflected  that  if  any 


536  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

other  method  than  Dr.  Vereker's  was  used  that  gentleman  was 
sure  to  believe  the  patient  might  have  been  saved.  Better  leave 
him  to  himself. 

Eosalind  returned  to  her  dressing,  after  Dr.  Conrad  walked 
away  from  the  house,  with  a  feeling — not  a  logical  one — that 
now  she  need  not  hurry.  Why  having  spoken  with  him  and 
forwarded  him  on  to  look  for  Sally  and  Gerry  should  make  any 
difference  was  not  at  all  clear,  and  she  did  not  account  to  her- 
self for  it.  She  accepted  it  as  an  occurrence  that  put  her  some- 
how in  touch  with  the  events  of  the  day — made  her  a  part  of 
what  was  going  on  elsewhere.  She  had  felt  lapsed,  for  the  mo- 
ment, when,  waking  suddenly  to  advanced  daylight,  she  had 
gone  first  to  her  husband's  room  and  then  to  Sally's,  and  found 
both  empty.  The  few  words  spoken  from  her  window  with  her 
recently  determined  son-in-law  had  switched  on  her  current 
again,  metaphorically  speaking. 

So  she  took  matters  easily,  and  was  at  rest  about  her  husband, 
in  spite  of  the  episode  of  the  previous  evening — rather,  we  should 
have  said,  of  the  small  hours  of  that  morning.  The  fact  is,  it 
was  her  first  sleep  she  had  waked  from,  an  unusually  long  and 
sound  one  after  severe  tension,  and  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
events  she  would  probably  have  gone  to  sleep  again.  Instead, 
she  had  got  up  at  once,  and  gone  to  her  husband's  room  to 
relieve  her  mind  about  him.  A  momentary  anxiety  at  finding 
it  empty  disappeared  when  she  found  Sally's  empty  also;  but 
by  that  time  she  was  effectually  waked,  and  rang  for  Mrs.  Lob- 
joit  and  the  hot  water. 

If  Mrs.  Lobjoit,  when  she  appeared  with  it,  had  been  able  to 
give  particulars  of  Sally's  departure,  and  to  say  that  she  and 
Mr.  Fenwick  had  gone  out  separately,  Rosalind  would  have  felt 
less  at  ease  about  him;  but  nothing  transpired  to  show  that 
they  had  not  gone  out  together.  Mrs.  Lobjoit's  data  were  all 
based  on  the  fact  that  she  found  the  street  door  open  when  she 
went  to  do  down  her  step,  and  she  had  finished  this  job  and 
gone  back  into  the  kitchen  by  the  time  Sally  followed  Fenwick 
out.  Of  course,  she  never  came  upstairs  to  see  what  rooms  were 
empty;  why  should  she?  And  as  no  reason  for  inquiry  pre- 
sented itself,  the  question  was  never  raised  by  Rosalind.  Sally 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  537 

was  naturally  an  earlier  bird  than  herself,  and  quite  as  often  as 
not  she  would  join  Gerry  in  his  walk  before  breakfast. 

How  thankful  she  felt,  now  that  the  revelation  was  over,  that 
Sally  was  within  reach  to  help  in  calming  down  the  mind  that 
had  been  so  terribly  shaken  by  it;  for  all  her  thoughts  were  of 
Gerry;  on  her  own  behalf  she  felt  nothing  but  contentment. 
Think  what  her  daily  existence  had  been!  What  had  she  to 
lose  by  a  complete  removal  of  the  darkness  that  had  shrouded 
her  husband's  early  life  with  her — or  rather,  what  had  she  not 
to  gain?  Now  that  it  had  been  assured  to  her  that  nothing  in 
the  past  could  make  a  new  rift  between  them,  the  only  weight 
upon  her  mind  was  the  possible  necessity  for  revealing  to  Sally 
in  the  end  the  story  of  her  parentage.  What  mother,  to  whom 
a  like  story  of  her  own  early  days  was  neither  more  nor  less 
than  a  glimpse  into  Hell,  could  have  felt  otherwise  about  com- 
municating it  to  her  child  ?  She  felt,  too,  the  old  feeling  of  the 
difficulty  there  would  be  in  making  Sally  understand.  The  girl 
had  not  chanced  across  devildom  enough  to  make  her  an  easy 
recipient  of  such  a  tale. 

Oh,  the  pleasure  with  which  she  recalled  his  last  words  of  the 
night  before:  "She  is  my  daughter  now!"  It  was  the  final 
ratification  of  the  protest  of  her  life  against  the  "rights"  that 
Law  and  Usage  grant  to  technical  paternity;  rights  that  can  only 
be  abrogated  or  ignored  by  a  child's  actual  parent — its  mother 
— at  the  cost  of  insult  and  contumely  from  a  world  that  worships 
its  own  folly  and  ignores  its  own  gods.  Sally  was  hers — her 
own — hard  as  the  terms  of  her  possession  had  been,  and  she  had 
assigned  a  moiety  of  her  rights  in  her  to  the  man  she  loved. 
What  was  the  fatherhood  of  blood  alone  to  set  against  the  one 
her  motherhood  had  a  right  to  concede,  and  had  conceded,  in 
response  to  the  spontaneous  growth  of  a  father's  love?  What 
claim  had  devilish  cruelty  and  treachery  to  any  share  in  their 
result — a  result  that,  after  all,  was  the  only  compensation  pos- 
sible to  their  victim  ? 

We  do  not  make  this  endeavour  to  describe  Rosalind's  frame 
of  mind  with  a  view  to  either  endorsing  or  disclaiming  her 
opinions.  We  merely  record  them  as  those  of  a  woman  whose 
life-story  was  an  uncommon  one;  but  not  without  a  certain 
sympathy  for  the  new  definition  of  paternity  their  philosophy 


538  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

involves,  backed  by  a  feeling  that  its  truth  is  to  some  extent 
acknowledged  in  the  existing  marriage-law  of  several  countries. 
As  a  set-off  against  this,  no  woman  can  have  a  child  entirely  her 
own  except  by  incurring  what  are  called  "social  disadvantages." 
The  hare  that  breaks  covert  incurs  social  disadvantages.  A  happy 
turn  of  events  had  shielded  Rosalind  from  the  hounds,  or  they 
had  found  better  sport  elsewhere.  And  her  child  was  her  own. 

But  even  as  the  thought  was  registered  in  her  mind,  that  child 
lay  lifeless;  and  her  husband,  stunned  and  dumb  in  his  despair, 
dared  not  even  long  that  she,  too,  should  know,  to  share  his 
burden. 

"Those  people  are  taking  their  time/'  said  she.  Not  that 
she  was  pressingly  anxious  for  them  to  come  home.  It  was 
early  still,  and  the  more  Gerry  lived  in  the  present  the  better. 
Sally  and  her  lover  were  far  and  away  the  best  foreground  for 
the  panorama  of  his  mind  just  now,  and  she  herself  would  be 
quite  happy  in  the  middle  distance.  There  would  be  time  and 
enough  hereafter,  when  the  storm  had  subsided,  for  a  revelation 
of  all  those  vanished  chapters  of  his  life  in  Canada  and  else- 
where. 

It  was  restful  to  her,  after  the  tension  and  trial  of  the  night, 
to  feel  that  he  was  happy  with  Sally  and  poor  Prosy.  What 
did  it  really  matter  how  long  they  dawdled?  She  could  hear 
in  anticipation  their  voices  and  the  laughter  that  would  tell  her 
of  their  coming.  In  a  very  little  while  it  would  be  a  reality, 
and,  after  all,  the  pleasure  of  a  good  symposium  over  Sally's 
betrothal  was  still  to  come.  She  and  Gerry  and  the  two  prin- 
cipals had  not  spoken  of  it  together  yet.  That  would  be  a  real 
happiness.  How  seldom  it  was  that  an  engagement  to  marry 
gave  such  complete  satisfaction  to  bystanders!  And,  after  all, 
they  are  the  ones  to  be  consulted;  not  the  insignificant  bride 
and  bridegroom  elect.  Perhaps,  though,  she  was  premature  in 
this  case.  Was  there  not  the  Octopus?  But  then  she  remem- 
bered with  pleasure  that  Conrad  had  represented  his  mother  as 
phenomenally  genial  in  her  attitude  towards  the  new  arrange- 
ment; as  having,  in  fact,  a  claim  to  be  considered  not  only  a 
bestower  of  benign  consent,  but  an  accomplice  before  the  fact. 
Still,  Rosalind  felt  her  own  reserves  on  the  subject,  although 
she  had  always  taken  the  part  of  the  Octopus  on  principle  when 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  539 

she  thought  Sally  had  become  too  disrespectful  towards  her. 
Anyhow,  no  use  to  beg  and  borrow  troubles!  Let  her  dwell  on 
the  happiness  only  that  was  before  them  all.  She  pictured  a 
variety  of  homes  for  Sally  in  the  time  to  come,  peopling  them 
with  beautiful  grandchildren — only,  mind  you,  this  was  to  be 
many,  many  years  ahead!  She  could  not  cast  herself  for  the 
part  of  grandmother  while  she  twined  that  glorious  hair  into  its 
place  with  hands  that  for  softness  and  whiteness  would  have 
borne  comparison  with  Sally's  own. 

In  the  old  days,  before  the  news  of  evil  travelled  fast,  the 
widowed  wife  would  live  for  days,  weeks,  months,  unclouded  by 
the  knowledge  of  her  loneliness,  rejoicing  in  the  coming  hour 
that  was  to  bring  her  wanderer  back;  and  even  as  her  heart 
laughed  to  think  how  now,  at  last,  the  time  was  drawing  near 
for  his  return,  his  heart  had  ceased  to  beat,  and,  it  may  be,  his 
bones  were  already  bleaching  where  the  assassin's  knife  had  left 
him  in  the  desert;  or  were  swaying  to  and  fro  in  perpetual 
monotonous  response  to  the  ground-swell,  in  some  strange  green 
reflected  light  of  a  sea-cavern  no  man's  eye  had  ever  seen;  or 
buried  nameless  in  a  common  tomb  with  other  victims  of  battle 
or  of  plague ;  or,  worst  of  all,  penned  in  some  dungeon,  mad  to 
think  of  home,  waking  from  dreams  of  her  to  the  terror  of  the 
intolerable  night,  its  choking  heat  or  deadly  chill.  And  all  those 
weeks  or  months  the  dearth  of  news  would  seem  just  the  chance 
of  a  lost  letter,  no  more — a  thing  that  may  happen  any  day  to 
any  of  us.  And  she  would  live  on  in  content  and  hope,  jesting 
even  in  anticipation  of  his  return. 

Even  so  Rosalind,  happy  and  undisturbed,  dwelt  on  the  days 
that  were  to  come  for  the  merpussy  and  poor  Prosy,  as  she  still 
had  chosen  to  call  him,  for  her  husband  and  herself ;  and  all  the 
while  there,  so  near  her,  was  the  end  of  it  all,  written  in  letters 
of  death. 

They  were  taking  their  time,  certainly,  those  people;  so  she 
would  put  her  hat  on  and  go  to  meet  them.  Mrs.  Lobjoit  wasn't 
to  hurry  breakfast,  but  wait  till  they  came.  All  right ! 

It  looked  as  if  it  would  rain  later,  so  it  was  just  as  well  to  get 
out  a  little  now.  Kosalind  was  glad  of  the  sweet  air  off  the  sea, 
for  the  night  still  hung  about  her.  The  tension  of  it  was  011 
her  still,  for  all  that  she  counted  herself  so  much  the  better,  so 


540  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

much  the  safer,  for  that  interview  with  Gerry.  But  oh,  what  a 
thing  to  think  that  now  he  knew  her  as  she  had  known  him  from 
the  beginning!  How  much  they  would  have  to  tell  each  other, 
when  once  they  were  well  in  calm  water !  .  .  .  Why  were  those 
girls  running,  and  why  did  that  young  man  on  the  beach  below 
shout  to  some  one  who  followed  him,  "It's  over  at  the  pier"  ? 

"Is  anything  the  matter?"  She  asked  the  question  of  a  very 
old  man,  whom  she  knew  well  by  sight,  who  was  hurrying  his 
best  in  the  same  direction.  But  his  best  was  but  little,  as  speed, 
though  it  did  credit  to  his  age ;  for  old  Simon  was  said  to  be  in 
his  hundredth  year.  Eosalind  walked  easily  beside  him  as  he 
answered : 

"I  oondersta'and,  missis,  there's  been  a  fall  from  the  pier- 
head. ...  Oh  yes,  they've  getten  un  out;  ye  may  easy  your 
mind  o'  that."  But,  for  all  that,  Rosalind  wasn't  sorry  her 
party  were  up  at  the  hotel.  She  had  believed  them  there  long 
enough  to  have  forgotten  that  she  had  no  reason  for  the  belief 
to  speak  of. 

"You've  no  idea  who  it  is?" 

"Some  do  say  a  lady  and  a  gentleman."  Rosalind  felt  still 
gladder  of  her  confidence  that  Sally  and  Gerry  were  out  of  the 
way.  "'Ary  one  of  'em  would  be  bound  to  drown  but  for  the 
boats  smart  and  handy — barring  belike  a  swimmer  like  your 
young  lady !  She's  a  rare  one,  to  tell  of !" 

"I  believe  she  is.  She  swam  round  the  Cat  Buoy  in  a  worse 
sea  than  this  two  days  ago." 

"And  she  would,  too!"  Then  the  old  boy's  voice  changed 
as  he  went  on,  garrulous:  "But  there  be  seas,  missis,  no  man 
can  swim  in.  My  fower  boys,  they  were  fine  swimmers — all 
f  ower !" 

"But  were  they  ?  .  .  ."  Rosalind  did  not  like  to  say  drowned ; 
but  old  Simon  took  it  as  spoken. 

"All  fower  of  'em — fine  lads  all — put  off  to  the  wreck — wreck 
o'  th'  brig  Thyrsis,  on  th'  Goodwins — and  ne'er  a  one  come 
back.  And  I  had  the  telling  of  it  to  their  mother.  And  the 
youngest,  he  never  was  found;  and  the  others  was  stone  dead 
ashore,  nigh  on  to  the  Foreland.  There  was  none  to  help.  Fifty- 
three  year  ago  come  this  Michaelmas." 

"Is   their  mother   still   living?"   Rosalind   asked,  interested. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  541 

Old  Simon  had  got  to  that  stage  in  which  the  pain  of  the  past 
is  less  than  the  pleasure  of  talking  it  over.  "Died,  she  did/' 
said  he,  almost  as  though  he  were  unconcerned,  "thirty-five 
year  ago — five  year  afower  ever  I  married  my  old  missis  yander." 
Rosalind  felt  less  sympathy.  If  she  were  to  lose  Sally  or  Gerry, 
would  she  ever  be  able  to  talk  like  this,  even  if  she  lived  to  be 
ninety-nine?  Possibly  yes — only  she  could  not  know  it  now. 
She  felt  too  curious  about  what  had  happened  at  the  pier  to 
think  of  going  back,  and  walked  on  with  old  Simon,  not  answer- 
ing him  much.  He  seemed  quite  content  to  talk. 

She  did  not  trouble  herself  on  the  point  of  her  party  return- 
ing and  not  finding  her.  Ten  chances  to  one  they  would  hear 
about  the  accident,  and  guess  where  she  had  gone.  Most  likely 
they  would  follow  her.  Besides,  she  meant  to  go  back  as  soon  as 
ever  she  knew  what  had  happened. 

Certainly  there  were  a  great  many  people  down  there  round 
about  Lloyd's  Coffeehouse!  Had  a  life  been  lost?  How  she 
hoped  not!  What  a  sad  end  it  would  be  to  such  a  happy  holi- 
day as  theirs  had  been !  She  said  something  to  this  effect  to 
the  old  man  beside  her.  His  reply  was:  "Ye  may  doubt  of  it, 
in  my  judgment,  missis.  The  rowboats  were  not  long  enough 
agone  for  that.  Mayhap  he'll  take  a  bit  of  nursing  round, 
though."  But  he  quickened  his  pace,  and  Rosalind  was  sorry 
that  a  sort  of  courtesy  towards  him  stood  in  her  way.  She 
would  have  liked  to  go  much  quicker. 

She  could  not  quite  understand  the  scared  look  of  a  girl  to 
whom  she  said,  "Is  it  a  bad  accident?  Do  you  know  who  it 
is?"  nor  why  this  girl  muttered  something  under  her  breath, 
then  got  away,  nor  why  so  many  eyes,  all  tearful,  should  be 
fixed  on  her.  She  asked  again  of  the  woman  nearest  her,  "Do 
you  know  who  it  is?"  but  the  woman  gasped,  and  became  hys- 
terical, making  her  afraid  she  had  accosted  some  anxious  rela- 
tive or  near  friend,  who  could  not  bear  to  speak  of  it.  And 
still  all  the  eyes  were  fixed  upon  her.  A  shudder  ran  through 
her.  Could  that  be  pity  she  saw  in  them — pity  for  her? 

"For  God's  sake,  tell  me  at  once !    Tell  me  what  this  is.  .  .  ." 

Still  silence!  She  could  hear  through  it  sobs  here  and  there 
in  the  crowd,  and  then  two  women  pointed  to  where  an  elderly 
man  who  looked  like  a  doctor  came  from  a  doorway  close  by. 


542  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

She  heard  the  hysterical  woman  break  down  outright,  and  her 
removal  by  friends,  and  then  the  strong  Scotch  accent  of  the 
doctor-like  man  making  a  too  transparent  effort  towards  an 
encouraging  tone. 

"There's  nae  reason  to  anteecipate  a  fatal  tairmination,  so 
far.  I  wouldna  undertake  myself  to  say  the  seestolic  motion 
of  the  heart  was  .  .  ."  But  he  hesitated,  with  a  puzzled  look, 
as  Rosalind  caught  his  arm  and  hung  to  it,  crying  out:  "Why 
do  you  tell  me  this  ?  For  God's  sake,  speak  plain !  I  am  stronger 
than  you  think." 

His  answer  came  slowly,  in  an  abated  voice,,  but  clearly: 
"Because  they  tauld  me  ye  were  the  girl's  mither." 

In  the  short  time  that  had  passed  since  Rosalind's  mind  first 
admitted  an  apprehension  of  evil  the  worst  possibility  it  had 
conceived  was  that  Vereker  or  her  husband  was  in  danger.  No 
misgiving  about  Sally  had  entered  it,  except  so  far  as  a  swift 
thought  followed  the  fear  of  mishap  to  one  of  them.  "How 
shall  Sally  be  told  of  this  ?  When  and  where  will  she  know  ?" 

Two  of  the  women  caught  her  as  she  fell,  and  carried  her  at 
the  Scotch  doctor's  bidding  into  a  house  adjoining,  where  Fen- 
wick  had  been  carried  in  a  half -insensible  collapse  that  had 
followed  his  landing  from  the  cobble-boat  in  which  he  was  sculled 
ashore. 

"Tell  me  what  has  happened.  Where  is  Dr.  Vereker  ?"  Rosa- 
lind asks  the  question  of  any  of  the  fisher-folk  round  her  as 
soon  as  returning  consciousness  brings  speech.  They  look  at 
each  other,  and  the  woman  the  cottage  seems  to  belong  to  says 
interrogatively,  "The  young  doctor-gentleman?"  and  then  an- 
swers the  last  question.  He  is  looking  to  the  young  lady  in  at 
the  Coffeehouse.  But  no  one  says  what  has  happened.  Rosa- 
lind looks  beseechingly  round. 

"Will  you  not  tell  me  now  ?    Oh,  tell  me — tell  me  the  whole !" 

"It's  such  a  little  we  know  ourselves,  ma'am.  But  my  hus- 
band will  be  here  directly.  It  was  he  brought  the  gentleman 
ashore.  .  .  ." 

"Where  is  the  gentleman?"  Rosalind  has  caught  up  the 
speaker  with  a  decisive  rally.  Her  natural  strength  is  returning, 
prompted  by  something  akin  to  desperation. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  643 

"We  have  him  in  here,  ma'am.  But  he's  bad,  too!  Here's 
my  husband.  Have  ye  the  brandy,  Tom?" 

Rosalind  struggles  to  her  feet  from  the  little  settee  they  had 
laid  her  on.  Her  head  is  swimming,  and  she  is  sick,  but  she 
says :  "Let  me  come !"  She  has  gathered  this  much — that  what- 
ever has  happened  to  Sally,  Vereker  is  there  beside  her,  and 
the  other  doctor  she  knows  of.  She  can  do  nothing,  and  Gerry 
is  close  at  hand.  They  let  her  come,  and  the  woman  and  her 
husband  follow.  The  one  or  two  others  go  quietly  out;  there 
were  too  many  for  the  tiny  house. 

That  is  Gerry,  she  can  see,  on  the  trestle-bedstead  near  the 
window  with  the  flowerpots  in  it.  He  seems  only  half  conscious, 
and  his  hands  and  face  are  cold.  She  cannot  be  sure  that  he 
has  recognised  her.  Then  she  knows  she  is  being  spoken  to.  It 
is  the  fisherman's  wife  who  speaks. 

"We  could  find  no  way  to  get  the  gentleman's  wet  garments 
from  him,  but  we  might  make  a  shift  to  try  again.  He's  a  bit 
hard  to  move.  Not  too  much  at  once,  Tom."  Her  husband  is 
pouring  brandy  from  his  flask  into  a  mug. 

"Has  he  had  any  brandy  ?" 

"Barely  to  speak  of.    Tell  the  lady,  Tom !" 

"No  more  than  the  leaving  of  a  flask  nigh  empty  out  in  my 
boat.  It  did  him  good,  too.  He  got  the  speech  to  tell  of  the 
young  lady,  else — God  help  us! — we  might  have  rowed  him  in, 
and  lost  the  bit  of  water  she  was  under.  But  we  had  the  luck 
to  find  her."  It  was  the  owner  of  the  cobble  who  spoke. 

"Gerry,  drink  some  of  this  at  once.  It's  me — Rosey — your 
wife!"  She  is  afraid  his  head  may  fail,  for  anything  may  hap- 
pen now ;  but  the  brandy  the  fisherman's  wife  has  handed  to  her 
revives  him.  No  one  speaks  for  awhile,  and  Rosalind,  in  the 
dazed  state  that  so  perversely  notes  and  dwells  on  some  small 
thing  of  no  importance,  and  cannot  grasp  the  great  issue  of  some 
crisis  we  are  living  through,  is  keenly  aware  of  the  solemn  ticking 
of  a  high  grandfather  clock,  and  of  the  name  of  the  maker  on 
its  face — "Thomas  Locock,  Rochester."  She  sees  it  through 
the  door  into  the  front  room,  and  wonders  what  the  certificate 
or  testimonial  in  a  frame  beside  it  is ;  and  whether  the  Bible  on 
the  table  below  it,  beside  the  fat  blue  jug  with  a  ship  and  in- 
scriptions on  it,  has  illustrations  and  the  Stem  of  Jesse  rendered 


544  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

pictorially.  Or  is  it  "Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  no  Bible  at  all? 
Who  or  what  is  she,  that  can  sit  and  think  of  this  and  that, 
knowing  that  a  world — her  world  and  her  husband's — is  at  stake, 
and  that  a  terrible  game  is  being  played  to  save  it,  there  writhin 
twenty  yards  of  them?  If  she  could  only  have  given  active 
help!  But  that  she  knows  is  impossible.  She  knows  enough 
to  be  satisfied  that  all  that  can  be  done  is  being  done ;  that  even 
warmth  and  stimulants  are  useless,  perhaps  even  injurious,  till 
artificial  respiration  has  done  its  work.  She  can  recall  Sally's 
voice  telling  her  of  these  things.  Yes,  she  is  best  here  beside 
her  husband. 

What  is  it  that  he  says  in  a  gasping  whisper  ?  Can  any  one  tell 
him  what  it  is  has  happened?  She  cannot — perhaps  could  not 
if  she  knew — and  she  does  not  yet  know  herself.  She  repeats 
her  question  to  the  fisherman  and  his  wife.  They  look  at  each 
other  and  say  young  Ben  Tracy  was  on  the  pier.  Call  him  in. 
It  is  something  to  know  that  what  has  happened  was  on  the 
pier.  While  young  Ben  is  hunted  up  the  opportunity  is  taken 
to  make  the  change  of  wet  clothes  for  extemporised  dry  ones. 
The  half-drowned,  all-chilled,  and  bewildered  man  is  reviving, 
and  can  help,  though  rigidly  and  with  difficulty.  Then  Ben  is 
brought  in,  appalled  and  breathless. 

The  red-eyed  and  tear-stained  boy  is  in  bad  trim  for  giving 
evidence,  but  under  exhortation  to  speak  up  and  tell  the  lady 
he  articulates  his  story  through  his  sobs.  He  is  young,  and  can 
cry.  He  goes  back  to  the  beginning. 

His  father  told  him  to  run  and  hunt  round  for  the  life-belt, 
and  he  went  to  left  instead  of  to  right,  and  missed  of  seeing  it. 
And  he  was  at  the  top  o'  the  ladder,  shooat'un  aloud  to  his 
father,  and  the  gentleman — he  nodded  towards  Fenwick — was 
walking  down  below.  Then  the  young  lady  came  to  the  top 
stair  of  the  ladder.  The  narrator  threw  all  his  powers  of  descrip- 
tion into  the  simultaneousness  of  Sally's  arrival  at  this  point 
and  the  gentleman  walking  straight  over  the  pier-edge.  "And 
then  the  young  lady  she  threw  away  her  hat,  and  come  runnin' 
down,  runnin'  down,  and  threw  away  her  cloak,  she  did,  and 
stra'at  she  went  for  t'  wa'ater!"  Young  Benjamin's  story  and 
his  control  over  his  sobs  come  to  an  end  at  the  same  time,  and 
his  father,  just  arrived,  takes  up  the  tale. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  545 

"I  saw  there  was  mishap  in  it,"  he  says,  "by  the  manner  of  my 
young  lad  with  the  lady's  hat,  and  I  went  direct  for  the  life- 
belt, for  I'm  no  swimmer  myself.  Tom,  man,  tell  the  lady  I'm 
no  swimmer  .  .  ."  Tom  nodded  assent,  ".  .  .  or  I  might  have 
tried  my  luck.  It  was  a  bad  business  that  the  life-belt  was  well 
away  at  the  far  end,  and  I  had  no  chance  to  handle  it  in  time. 
It  was  the  run  of  the  tide  took  them  out  beyond  the  length  of 
the  line,  and  1  was  bound  to  make  the  best  throw  I  could,  and 
signal  to  shore  for  a  boat."  He  was  going  to  tell  how  the  only 
little  boat  at  the  pier-end  had  got  water-logged  in  the  night, 
when  Rosalind  interrupted  him. 

"Did  you  see  them  both  in  the  water?" 

"Plain.  The  young  lady  swimming  behind  and  keeping  the 
gentleman's  head  above  the  water.  I  could  hear  her  laughing 
like,  and  talking.  Then  I  sent  the  belt  out,  nigh  half-way,  and 
she  saw  it  and  swam  for  it.  Then  I  followed  my  young  lad  for 
to  get  out  a  shore-boat." 

It  was  the  thought  of  the  merpussy  laughing  like  and  talking 
in  the  cruel  sea  that  was  to  engulf  her  that  brought  a  heart- 
broken choking  moan  from  her  mother.  Then,  all  being  told, 
the  fisher-folk  glanced  at  each  other,  and  by  common  consent 
went  noiselessly  from  the  room  and  lingered  whispering  outside. 
They  closed  the  outer  door,  leaving  the  cottage  entirely  to 
Rosalind  and  her  husband,  and  then  they  two  were  alone  in  the 
darkened  world;  and  Conrad  Vereker,  whom  they  could  not 
help,  was  striving — striving  against  despair — to  bring  back  life 
to  Sally. 

A  terrible  strain — an  almost  killing  strain — had  been  put  upon 
Fenwick's  powers  of  endurance.  Probably  the  sudden  shock  of 
his  immersion,  the  abrupt  suppression  of  an  actual  fever  almost 
at  the  cost  of  sanity,  had  quite  as  much  to  do  with  this  as  what 
he  was  at  first  able  to  grasp  of  the  extent  of  the  disaster.  But 
actual  chill  and  exposure  had  contributed  their  share  to  the 
state  of  semi-collapse  in  which  Rosalind  found  him.  Had  the 
rower  of  the  cobble  turned  in-shore  at  once,  some  of  this  might 
have  been  saved ;  but  that  would  have  been  one  pair  of  eyes  the 
fewer,  and  every  boat  was  wanted.  Now  that  his  powerful 
constitution  had  the  chance  to  reassert  itself,  his  revival  went 


546  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

quickly.  He  was  awakening  to  a  world  with  a  black  grief  in 
it;  but  Rosey  was  there,  and  had  to  be  lived  for,  and  think  of 
his  debt  to  her !  Think  of  the  great  wrong  he  did  her  in  that 
old  time  that  he  had  only  regained  the  knowledge  of  yesterday ! 
Her  hand  in  his  gave  him  strength  to  speak,  and  though  his 
voice  was  weak  it  would  reach  the  head  that  rested  on  his  bosom. 

"I  can  tell  you  now,  darling,  what  I  remember.  I  went  off 
feverish  in  the  night  after  you  left  me,  and  I  suppose  my  brain 
gave  way,  in  a  sense.  I  went  out  early  to  shake  it  off,  and  a  sort 
of  delusion  completely  got  the  better  of  me.  I  fancied  I  was 
back  at  Bombay,  going  on  the  boat  for  Australia,  and  I  just 
stepped  off  the  pier-edge.  Our  darling  must  have  been  there. 
Oh,  Sally,  Sally !  .  .  ."  He  had  to  pause  and  wait. 

"Hope  is  not  all  dead — not  yet,  not  yet!"  Eosalind's  voice 
seemed  to  plead  against  despair. 

"I  know,  Eosey  dearest — not  yet.  I  heard  her  voice  .  .  . 
oh,  her  voice !  .  .  .  call  to  me  to  be  still,  and  she  would  save  me. 
And  then  I  felt  her  dear  hand  .  .  .  first  my  arm,  then  my  head, 
on  each  side."  Again  his  voice  was  choking,  but  he  recovered. 
"Then,  somehow,  the  life-belt  was  round  me — I  can't  tell  how, 
but  she  made  me  hold  it  so  as  to  be  safe.  She  was  talking  and 
laughing,  but  I  could  not  hear  much.  I  know,  however,  that 
she  said  quite  suddenly,  'I  had  better  swim  back  to  the  pier. 
Hold  on  tight,  Jeremiah !'  .  .  ."  He  faltered  again  before  end- 
ing. "I  don't  know  why  she  went,  but  she  said,  'I  must  go,' 
and  swam  away." 

That  was  all  Fenwick  could  tell.  The  explanation  came  later. 
It  was  that  unhappy  petticoat-tape!  A  swimmer's  leg-stroke 
may  be  encumbered  in  a  calm  sea,  or  when  the  only  question  is 
of  keeping  afloat  for  awhile.  But  in  moderately  rough  water, 
and  in  a  struggle  against  a  running  tide — which  makes  a  cer- 
tain speed  imperative — the  conditions  are  altered.  Sally  may 
have  judged  wrongly  in  trying  to  return  to  the  pier,  but  remem- 
ber— she  could  not  in  the  first  moments  know  that  the  mishap 
had  been  seen,  and  help  was  near  at  band.  Least  of  all  could 
ehe  estimate  the  difficulty  of  swimming  in  a  loosened  encumbered 
skirt.  In  our  judgment,  she  would  have  done  better  to  remain 
near  the  life-belt,  even  if  she,  too,  had  ultimately  had  to  depend 
on  it.  The  additional  risk  for  Fenwick  would  have  been  small. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  547 

After  he  had  ended  what  he  had  to  tell  he  remained  quite  still, 
and  scarcely  spoke  during  the  hour  that  followed.  Twice  or 
three  times  during  that  hour  Rosalind  rose  to  go  out  and  ask 
if  there  was  any  change.  But,  turning  to  him  with  her  hand  on 
the  door,  and  asking  "Shall  I  go?"  she  was  always  met  with 
"What  good  will  it  do?  Conrad  will  tell  us  at  once,"  and  re- 
turned to  her  place  beside  him.  After  all,  what  she  heard  might 
be  the  end  of  Hope.  Better  stave  off  Despair  to  the  last. 

She  watched  the  deliberate  hands  of  the  clock  going  cruelly 
on,  unfaltering,  ready  to  register  in  cold  blood  the  moment  that 
should  say  that  Sally,  as  they  knew  her,  was  no  more.  Thomas 
Locock,  of  Rochester,  had  taken  care  of  that.  Where  would 
those  hands  be  on  that  clock-face  when  all  attempt  at  resuscita- 
tion had  to  stop  ?  And  why  live  after  it  ? 

She  fancied  she  could  hear,  at  intervals,  Dr.  Conrad's  voice 
giving  instructions;  and  the  voice  of  the  Scotsman,  less  doubt- 
fully, which  always  sounded  like  that  of  a  medical  man,  for  some 
reason  not  defined.  As  the  clock-hand  pointed  to  ten,  she  heard 
both  quite  near — outside  Lloyd's  Coffeehouse,  evidently.  Then 
she  knew  why  she  had  so  readily  relinquished  her  purpose  of 
getting  at  Dr.  Conrad  for  news.  It  was  the  dread  of  seeing  any- 
thing of  the  necessary  manipulation  of  the  body.  Could  she 
have  helped,  it  would  have  been  different.  Xo,  if  she  must  look 
upon  her  darling  dead,  let  it  be  later.  But  now  there  was  that 
poor  fellow-sufferer  within  reach,  and  she  could  see  him  without 
fear.  She  went  out  quickly. 

"Can  you  come  away?" 

"Quite  safely  for  a  minute.  The  others  have  done  it 
before." 

"Is  there  a  chance?" 

"There  is  a  chance."  Dr.  Conrad's  hand  as  she  grasps  it  is  so 
cold  that  it  makes  her  wonder  at  the  warmth  of  her  own.  She 
is  strangely  alive  to  little  things.  "Yes — there  is  a  chance,"  he 
repeats,  more  emphatically,  as  one  who  has  been  contradicted. 
But  the  old  Scotch  doctor  had  only  said  cautiously,  "It  would 
be  airly  times  to  be  geevin'  up  hopes,"  in  answer  to  a  half- 
suggestion  of  reference  to  him  in  the  words  just  spoken.  Rosa- 
lind keeps  the  cold  hand  that  has  taken  hers,  and  the  crushing 
weight  of  her  own  misery  almost  gives  place  to  her  utter  pity 


548  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

for  the  ash-white  face  before  her,  and  the  tale  there  is  in  it  of  a 
soul  in  torture. 

"What  is  the  longest  time  .  .  .  the  longest  time  ...  ?"  she 
cannot  frame  her  question,  but  both  doctors  take  its  meaning  at 
once,  repeating  together  or  between  them,  "The  longest  in- 
sensibility after  immersion  ?  Many  hours." 

"But  how  many?"  Six,  certainly,  is  Dr.  Conrad's  testimony. 
But  the  Scotchman's  conscience  plagues  him;  he  must  needs  be 
truthful.  "Vara  likely  you're  right,"  he  says.  "I  couldna  have 
borne  testimony  pairsonally  to  more  than  two.  But  vara  sair- 
tainly  you're  more  likely  to  be  right  than  I."  His  conscience 
has  a  chilling  effect. 

Fenwick,  a  haggard  spectacle,  has  staggered  to  the  door  of 
the  cottage.  He  wants  to  get  the  attention  of  some  one  in  the 
crowd  that  stands  about  in  silence,  never  intrusively  near.  It  is 
the  father  of  young  Benjamin,  who  comes  being  summoned. 

"That  man  you  told  me  about  .  .  ."  Fenwick  begins. 

"Peter  Burtenshaw?" 

"Ah !    How  long  was  he  insensible  ?" 

"Eight  hours — rather  better!  We  got  him  aboard  just  be- 
fore eight  bells  of  the  second  dog-watch,  and  it  was  eight  bells  of 
the  middle  watch  afore  he  spoke.  Safe  and  sure !  Wasn't  I  on 
the  morning-watch  myself,  and  beside  him  four  hours  of  the 
night  before,  and  turned  in  at  eight  bells?  He'll  tell  you  the 
same  tale  himself.  Peter  Burtenshaw — he's  a  stevedore  now, 
at  the  new  docks  at  Southampton."  Much  of  this  was  quite 
unintelligible — ship's  time  is  always  a  problem — but  it  was  re- 
assuring, and  Eosalind  felt  grateful  to  the  speaker,  whether 
what  he  said  was  true  or  not.  In  that  curious  frame  of  mind 
that  observed  the  smallest  things,  she  was  just  aware  of  the 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  a  reference  to  Peter  Burtenshaw  at  the 
new  docks  at  Southampton.  Then  she  felt  a  qualm  of  added 
sickness  at  heart  as  she  all  but  thought,  "How  that  will  amuse 
Sally  when  I  come  to  tell  it  to  her !" 

The  old  Scotchman  had  to  keep  an  appointment — connected 
with  birth,  not  death.  "I've  geen  my  pledge  to  the  wench's 
husband,"  he  said,  and  went  his  way.  Rosalind  saw  him  stopped 
as  he  walked  through  the  groups  that  were  lingering  silently  for 
a  chance  of  good  news ;  and  guessed  that  he  had  none  to  give,  by 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  549 

the  way  his  questioners  fell  back  disappointed.  She  was  con- 
scious that  the  world  was  beginning  to  reel  and  swim  about  her ; 
was  half  asking  herself  what  could  it  all  mean — the  waiting 
crowds  of  fisher- folk  speaking  in  undertones  among  themselves; 
the  pitying  eyes  fixed  on  her  and  withdrawn  as  they  met  her 
own ;  the  fixed  pallor  and  tense  speech  of  the  man  who  held  her 
hand,  then  left  her  to  return  again  to  an  awful  task  that  had, 
surely,  something  to  do  with  her  Sally,  there  in  that  cramped 
tarred-wood  structure  close  down  upon  the  beach.  What  did  his 
words  mean :  "I  must  go  back ;  it  is  best  for  you  to  keep  away"  ? 
Oh,  yes ;  now  she  knew,  and  it  was  all  true.  She  saw  how  right 
he  was,  but  she  read  in  his  eyes  the  reason  why  he  was  so  strong 
to  face  the  terror  that  she  knew  was  there — in  there!  It  was 
that  he  knew  so  well  that  death  would  be  open  to  him  if  defeat 
was  to  be  the  end  of  the  battle  he  was  fighting.  But  there  should 
be  no  panic.  Not  an  inch  of  ground  should  be  uncontested. 

Back  again  in  the  little  cottage  with  Gerry,  but  some  one  had 
helped  her  back.  Surely,  though,  his  voice  had  become  his  own 
again  as  he  said:  "We  are  no  use,  Rosey  darling.  We  are  best 
here.  Conrad  knows  what  he's  about."  And  there  was  a  rally 
of  real  hope,  or  a  bold  bid  for  it,  when  his  old  self  spoke  in  his 
words:  "Why  does  that  solemn  old  fool  of  a  Scotch  doctor 
want  to  put  such  a  bad  face  on  the  matter?  Patience,  sweet- 
heart, patience!" 

For  them  there  was  nothing  else.  They  could  hinder,  but  they 
could  not  help,  outside  there.  Nothing  for  it  now  but  to  count 
the  minutes  as  they  passed,  to  feel  the  cruelty  of  that  inexorable 
clock  in  the  stillness;  for  the  minutes  passed  too  quickly.  How 
could  it  be  else,  when  each  one  of  them  might  have  heralded  a 
hope  and  did  not;  when  each  bequeathed  its  little  legacy  of 
despair?  But  was  there  need  that  each  new  clock-tick  as  it 
came  should  say,  as  the  last  had  said :  "Another  second  has  gone 
of  the  little  hour  that  is  left;  another  inch  of  the  space  that 
parts  us  from  the  sentence  that  knows  no  respite  or  reprieve"? 
Was  it  not  enough  that  the  end  must  come,  without  the  throb 
of  that  monotonous  reminder :  "Nearer  still ! — nearer  still !" 

Neither  spoke  but  a  bare  word  or  two,  till  the  eleventh  stroke 
of  the  clock,  at  the  hour,  left  it  resonant  and  angry,  and  St. 
Sennans  tower  answered  from  without.  Then  Rosalind  said. 


550  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"Shall  I  go  out  and  see,  now?"  and  Fenwick  replied,  "Do, 
darling,  if  you  wish  to.  But  he  would  tell  us  at  once,  if  there 
were  anything."  She  answered,  "Yes,  perhaps  it's  no  use,"  and 
fell  back  into  silence. 

She  was  conscious  that  the  crowd  outside  had  increased,  in 
spite  of  a  fine  rain  that  had  followed  the  overclouding  of  the 
morning.  She  could  hear  the  voices  of  other  than  the  fisher- 
folk — some  she  recognised  as  those  of  beach  acquaintance.  That 
was  Mrs.  Arkwright,  the  mother  of  Gwenny.  And  that  was 
Gwenny  herself,  crying  bitterly.  Kosalind  knew  quite  well, 
though  she  could  hear  no  words,  that  Gwenny  was  being  told 
that  she  could  not  go  to  Miss  Nightingale  now.  She  half  thought 
she  would  like  to  have  Gwenny  in,  to  cry  on  her  and  make  her 
perhaps  feel  less  like  a  granite-block  in  pain.  But,  then,  was 
not  Sally  a  baby  of  three  once?  She  could  remember  the 
pleasure  the  dear  old  Major  had  at  seeing  baby  in  her  bath,  and 
how  he  squeezed  a  sponge  over  her  head,  and  she  screwed  her 
eyes  up.  He  had  died  in  good  time,  and  escaped  this  inheritance 
of  sorrow.  How  could  she  have  told  him  of  it  ? 

What  was  she  that  had  outlived  him  to  bear  all  this?  Much, 
so  much,  of  her  was  two  dry,  burning  eyes,  each  in  a  ring  of  pain, 
that  had  forgotten  tears  and  what  they  meant.  How  was  it 
that  now,  when  that  Arkwright  woman's  voice  brought  back  her 
talk  upon  the  beach,  not  four-and-twenty  hours  since,  and  her 
unwelcome  stirring  of  the  dead  embers  of  a  burned-out  past — 
how  was  it  that  that  past,  at  its  worst,  seemed  easier  to  bear 
than  this  intolerable  now?  How  had  it  come  about  that  a  mem- 
ory of  twenty  years  ago,  a  memory  of  how  she  had  prayed 
that  her  unborn  baby  might  die,  rather  than  live  to  remind  her 
of  that  black  stain  upon  the  daylight,  its  father,  had  become 
in  the  end  worse  to  her,  in  her  heart  of  hearts,  than  the  thing 
that  caused  it?  And  then  she  fell  to  wondering  when  it  was 
that  her  child  first  took  hold  upon  her  life;  first  crept  into  it, 
then  slowly  filled  it  up.  She  went  back  on  little  incidents  of 
that  early  time,  asking  herself,  was  it  then,  or  then,  I  first  saw 
that  she  was  Sally?  She  could  recall,  without  adding  another 
pang  to  her  dull,  insensate  suffering,  the  moment  when  the 
baby,  as  the  Major  and  General  Pellew  sat  playing  chess  upon 
the  deck,  captured  the  white  king,  and  sent  him  flying  into  the 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  551 

Mediterranean ;  and  though  she  could  not  smile  now,  could  know 
how  she  would  have  smiled  another  time.  Was  that  white  king 
afloat  upon  the  water  still  ?  A  score  of  little  memories  of  a  like 
sort  chased  one  another  as  her  mind  ran  on,  all  through  the 
childhood  and  girlhood  of  their  subject.  And  now — it  was  all 
to  end.  .  .  . 

And  throughout  those  years  this  silent  man  beside  her,  this 
man  she  meant  to  live  for  still,  for  all  it  should  be  in  a  darkened 
world — this  man  was  .  .  .  where?  To  think  of  it — in  all  those 
years,  no  Sally  for  him!  See  what  she  had  become  to  him  in 
so  short  a  time — such  a  little  hour  of  life !  Think  of  the  waste 
of  it — of  what  she  might  have  been !  And  it  was  she,  the  little 
unconscious  thing  herself,  that  sprang  from  what  had  parted 
them.  If  she  had  to  face  all  the  horrors  of  her  life  anew  for  it, 
would  she  flinch  from  one  of  them,  only  to  hear  that  the  heart 
that  had  stopped  its  beating  would  beat  again,  that  the  voice 
that  was  still  would  sound  in  her  ears  once  more  ? 

Another  hour !  The  clock  gave  out  its  warning  that  it  meant 
to  strike,  in  deadly  earnest  with  its  long  premonitory  roll.  Then 
all  those  twelve  strokes  so  quick  upon  the  heels  of  those  that 
sounded  but  now,  as  it  seemed.  Another  hour  from  the  tale  of 
those  still  left  but  reasonable  hope;  another  hour  nearer  to 
despair.  The  reverberations  died  away,  and  left  the  cold  insen- 
sate tick  to  measure  out  the  next  one,  while  St.  Sennans  tower 
Lr:i\c  its  answer  as  before. 

"Shall  I  go  now,  Gerry,  to  see?" 

"I  say  not,  darling;  but  go,  if  you  like."  He  could  not  bear 
to  hear  it,  if  it  was  to  be  the  death-sentence.  So  Rosalind  still 
sat  on  to  the  ticking  of  the  clock. 

Her  brain  and  powers  of  thought  were  getting  numlu-d. 
Trivial  things  came  out  of  the  bygone  times,  and  drew  her  into 
dreams — back  into  the  past  again — to  give  a  moment's  spurious 
peace;  then  forsook  her  treacherously  to  an  awakening,  each 
time  deadlier  than  the  last.  Each  time  to  ask  anew,  what  could 
it  all  mean  ?  Sally  dead  or  dying — Sally  dead  or  dying !  Each 
time  she  repeated  the  awful  words  to  herself,  to  try  to  get  a  hold 
she  was  not  sure  she  had  upon  their  meaning.  Each  time  she 
slipped  again  into  a  new  dream  and  lost  it. 

Back  again  now,  in  the  old  days  of  her  girlhood!     Back  in 


552  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

that  little  front  garden  of  her  mother's  house,  twenty  odd  years 
ago,  and  Gerry's  hand  in  hers — the  hand  she  held  to  now;  and 
Gerry's  face  that  now,  beside  her,  looked  so  still  and  white  and 
heart-broken,  all  aglow  with  life  and  thoughtless  youth  and 
hope.  Again  she  felt  upon  her  lips  his  farewell  kiss,  not  to  be 
renewed  until  .  .  .  but  at  the  thought  she  shuddered  away,  hor- 
ror-stricken, from  the  nightmare  that  any  memory  must  be  of 
what  then  crossed  her  life,  and  robbed  them  both  of  happiness. 
And  then  her  powers  of  reason  simply  reeled  and  swam,  and  her 
brain  throbbed  as  she  caught  the  thought  forming  in  it :  "Better 
happiness  so  lost,  and  all  the  misery  over  again,  than  this  blow 
that  has  come  upon  us  now !  Sally  dead  or  dying — Sally  dead 
or  dying!"  For  what  was  she.,  the  thing  we  could  not  bear  to 
lose,  but  the  living  record,  the  very  outcome,  of  the  poisoned 
soil  in  that  field  of  her  life  her  memory  shrank  from 
treading  ? 

What  was  that  old  Scotchman — he  seemed  to  have  come  back 
— what  was  he  saying  outside  there?  Yes,  listen!  Fenwick 
starts  up,  all  his  life  roused  into  his  face.  If  only  that  clock 
would  end  that  long  unnecessary  roll  of  warning,  and  strike! 
But  before  the  long-deferred  single  stroke  comes  to  say  another 
hour  has  passed,  he  is  up  and  at  the  door,  with  Rosalind  clinging 
to  him  terrified. 

"What's  the  news,  doctor?  Tell  it  out,  man! — never  fear." 
Rosalind  dares  not  ask;  her  heart  gives  a  great  bound,  and 
stops,  and  her  teeth  chatter  and  close  tight.  She  could  not  speak 
if  she  tried. 

"I  wouldna  like  to  be  over-confeedent,  Mr.  Fenwick,  and  ye'll 
understand  I'm  only  geevin'  ye  my  own  eempression.  .  .  ." 

"Yes.  quite  right — go  on.  .  .  ." 

"Vara  parteecularly  because  our  young  friend  Dr.  Vereker 
is  unwulling  to  commeet  himself  .  .  .  but  I  should  say  a  pair- 
ceptible  .  .  ." 

He  is  interrupted.  For  with  a  loud  shout  Dr.  Conrad  him- 
self, dishevelled  and  ashy-white  of  face,  comes  running  from  the 
door  opposite.  The  word  he  has  shouted  so  loudly  he  repeats 
twice;  then  turns  as  though  to  go  back.  But  he  does  not  reach 
the  door,  for  he  staggers  suddenly,  like  a  man  struck  by  a  bullet, 
and  falls  heavily,  insensible. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  553 

There  is  a  movement  and  a  shouting  among  the  scattered 
groups  that  have  been  waiting,  three  hours  past,  as  those  nearest 
at  hand  run  to  help  and  raise  him ;  and  the  sound  of  voices  and 
exultation  passes  from  group  to  group.  For  what  he  shouted 
was  the  one  word  "Breath!"  And  Rosalind  knew  its  meaning 
as  her  head  swam  and  she  heard  no  more. 


CHAPTER  XLVH 

WAS  IT  THE  LITTLE  GALVANIC  BATTERY  ?  THE  LAST  CHAPTER  RETOLD  B7 
THE  PRESS.  A  PROPER  RAILING.  BUT  THEY  WEREN '  T  DROWNED. 
WHAT'S  THE  FUSS?  MASTER  CHANCELLORSHIP  APPEARS  AND 
VANISHES.  ELECTUARY  OF  ST.  SENNA.  AT  GEORGIANA  TERRACE. 
A  LETTER  FROM  SALLY.  ANOTHER  FROM  CONRAD.  EVERYTHING 
VANISHES  ! 

PROFESSOR  SALES  WILSON,  Mrs.  Julius  Bradshaw's  papa,  was 
enjoying  himself  thoroughly.  He  was  the  sole  occupant  of 
260,  Ladbroke  Grove  Road,  servants  apart.  All  his  blood- 
connected  household  had  departed  two  days  after  the  musical 
evening  described  in  Chapter  XL.,  and  there  was  nothing  that 
pleased  him  better  than  to  have  London  to  himself — that  is  to 
say,  to  himself  and  five  millions  of  perfect  strangers.  He  had  it 
now,  and  could  wallow  unmolested  in  Sabellian  researches,  and 
tear  the  flimsy  theories  of  Bopsius — whose  name  we  haven't  got 
quite  right — to  tatters.  Indeed,  we  are  not  really  sure  the  re- 
searches were  Sabellian.  But  no  matter ! 

Just  at  the  moment  at  which  we  find  him,  the  Professor  was 
not  engaged  in  any  researches  at  all,  unless  running  one's  eye 
down  the  columns  of  a  leading  journal,  to  make  sure  there  is 
nothing  in  them,  is  a  research.  That  is  what  he  was  doing  in 
his  library.  And  he  was  also  talking  to  himself — a  person  from 
whom  he  had  no  reserves  or  concealments.  What  he  had  to  say 
ran  in  this  wise: 

"H'm! — h'm! — 'The  Cyclopean  Cyclopedia.'  Forty  volumes 
in  calf.  Net  price  thirty-five  pounds.  A  digest  of  human 
knowledge,  past,  present,  and  probable.  With  a  brief  appendix 
enumerating  the  things  of  which  we  are  still  ignorant,  and  of 
our  future  ignorance  of  which  we  are  scientifically  certain  .  .  . 
h'm !  h'm !  .  .  .  not  dear  at  the  price.  But  stop  a  bit !  'Until 
twelve  o'clock  on  Saturday  next  copies  of  the  above,  with  re- 

554 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  655 

volving  bookcase,  can  be  secured  for  the  low  price  of  seven 
pounds  ten.'  .  .  ."  This  did  not  seem  to  increase  the  speaker's 
confidence  and  he  continued,  as  he  wrestled  with  a  rearrange- 
ment of  the  sheet:  "Shiny  paper,  and  every  volume  weighs  a 
ton.  Very  full  of  matter — everything  in  it  except  the  thing  you 
want  to  know.  By-the-bye  .  .  .  what  a  singular  thing  it  is, 
when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  that  so  many  people  will  sell  you 
a  thing  worth  a  pound  for  sixpence,  who  won't  give  you  a  shil- 
ling outright  on  any  terms !  It  must  have  to  do  with  their  un- 
willingness to  encourage  mendicancy.  A  noble  self-denial, 
prompted  by  charity  organizations !  Hullo ! — what's  this  ? 
'Heroic  rescue  from  drowning  at  St.  Sennans-on-Sea.'  H'm — 
h'm — h'm !— can't  read  all  that.  But  that's  where  the  married 
couple  went — St.  Sennans-on-Sea.  The  bride  announced  her 
intention  yesterday  of  looking  in  at  five  to-day  for  tea.  So  I 
suppose  I  shall  be  disturbed  shortly." 

The  soliloquist  thought  it  necessary  to  repeat  his  last  words 
twice  to  convince  himself  and  the  atmosphere  that  his  position 
was  one  of  grievance.  Having  done  this,  and  feeling  he  ought 
to  substantiate  his  suggestion  that  he  was  just  on  the  point  of 
putting  salt  on  fhe  tail  of  an  unidentified  Samnite,  or  a  finishing 
touch  on  the  demolition  of  Bopsius,  he  folded  his  newspaper, 
which  we  suspect  he  had  not  been  reading  candidly  from,  and 
resumed  his  writing. 

Did  you  ever  have  a  quarter  of  an  hour  of  absolutely  unalloyed 
happiness?  Probably  not,  if  you  have  never  known  the  joys  of 
profound  antiquarian  erudition,  with  an  unelucidated  past  be- 
hind you,  and  inexpensive  publication  before.  The  Professor's 
fifteen  minutes  that  followed  were  not  only  without  alloy,  but 
had  this  additional  zest — that  that  girl  would  come  bothering  in 
directly,  and  he  would  get  his  grievance,  and  work  it.  And  at 
no  serious  expense,  for  he  was  really  very  partial  to  his  daughter, 
and  meant,  au  fond  de  soi,  to  enjoy  her  visit.  Nevertheless,  dis- 
cipline had  to  be  maintained,  if  only  for  purposes  of  self-decep- 
tion, and  the  Professor  really  believed  in  his  own  "Humph!  I 
supposed  it  would  be  that,"  when  La?titia's  knock  came  at  the 
street  door. 

"Such  a  shame  to  disturb  you,  papa  dear!  But  you'll  have 
to  give  me  tea — you  said  you  would." 


556  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"It  isn't  five  o'clock  yet.  Well — never  mind.  Sit  down  and 
don't  fidget.  I  shall  have  done  presently.  .  .  .  No !  make  your- 
self useful  now  you  are  here.  Get  me  'Passeri  Picture  Etrus- 
corum,'  volume  three,  out  of  shelf  C  near  the  window  .  .  .  that's 
right.  Very  good  find  for  a  young  married  woman.  Now  sit 
down  and  read  the  paper — there's  something  will  interest  you. 
You  may  ring  for  tea,  only  don't  talk." 

The  Professor  then  became  demonstratively  absorbed  in  the 
Sabellians,  or  Bopsius,  or  both,  and  Lastitia  acted  as  instructed, 
but  without  coming  on  the  newspaper-paragraph.  She  couldn't 
ask  for  a  clue  after  so  broad  a  hint,  so  she  had  to  be  contented 
with  supposing  her  father  referred  to  the  return  of  Sir  Charles 
Penderfield,  Bart.,  as  a  Home  Kule  Unionist  and  Protectionist 
Free  Trader.  Only  if  it  was  that,  it  was  the  first  she  had  ever 
known  of  her  father  being  aware  of  the  Bart.'s  admiration  for 
herself.  So  she  made  the  tea,  and  waited  till  the  pen-scratching 
stopped,  and  the  Sabellians  or  Bopsius  were  blotted,  glanced 
through,  and  ratified. 

"There,  that'll  do  for  that,  I  suppose."  His  tone  surrendered 
the  grievance  as  an  act  of  liberality,  but  maintained  the  principle. 
"Well,  have  we  found  it  ?" 

"Found  what?" 

"The  heroic  rescue — at  your  place — Saint  Somebody — Saint 
Senanus.  .  .  ." 

"No!  Do  show  me  that."  Laetitia  forms  a  mental  image  of 
a  lifeboat  going  out  to  a  wreck.  How  excited  Sally  must  have 
been! 

"Here,  give  it  me  and  I'll  find  it.  ...  Yes — that's  right — a 
big  lump  and  a  little  lump.  I'm  to  take  less  sugar  because  of 
gout.  Very  good !  Oh  .  .  .  yes  .  .  .  here  we  are.  'Heroic 
Rescue  at  St.  Sennans'  .  .  .  just  under  'Startling  Elopement  at 
ClaphamRise'  .  .  .  Got  it?" 

Lsetitia  supplied  the  cup  of  tea,  poured  one  for  herself,  and 
took  the  paper  from  her  father  without  the  slightest  suspicion 
of  what  was  coming.  "It  will  have  to  wait  a  minute  till  I've 
had  some  tea,"  she  said.  "I'm  as  thirsty  as  I  can  be.  I've 
been  to  see  my  mother-in-law  and  Constance" — this  was  Julius's 
sister — "off  to  Southend.  And  just  fancy,  papa;  Pag  and  I 
played  from  nine  till  a  quarter-to-one  last  night,  and  he  never 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  557 

felt  it,  nor  had  any  headache  nor  anything."  The  topic  is  so 
interesting  that  the  unread  paragraph  has  to  wait. 

The  Professor  cannot  think  of  any  form  of  perversion  better 
than  "Very  discreditable  to  him.  I  hope  you  blew  him  well 
up?" 

"Now,  papa,  don't  be  nonsensical !  Do  you  know,  I'm  really 
beginning  to  believe  Fag's  right,  and  it  was  the  little  galvanic 
battery.  Shouldn't  you  say  so,  though,  seriously?" 

"Why,  yes.  If  there  wasn't  a  big  galvanic  battery,  it  must 
have  been  the  little  one.  It  stands  to  reason.  But  what  does 
my  musical  son-in-law  think  was  the  little  galvanic  battery?" 

"Oh  dear,  papa,  how  ridiculous  you  are!  Why,  of  course, 
his  nerves  going  away — as  they  really  have  done,  you  know; 
and  I  can't  see  any  good  pretending  they  haven't.  Yesterday 
was  the  fourth  evening  he  hasn't  felt  them.  .  .  ." 

"Stop  a  bit!  There  is  a  lack  of  scientific  precision  in  the 
structure  of  your  sentences.  A  young  married  woman  ought 
really  to  be  more  accurate.  Now  let's  look  it  over,  and  do  a 
little  considering.  I  gather,  in  the  first  place,  that  my  son-in- 
law's  nerves  going  away  was,  or  were,  a  little  galvanic  bat- 
tery. .  .  ." 

"Dear  papa,  don't  paradox  and  catch  me  out.  Just  this  once, 
be  reasonable !  Think  what  a  glorious  thing  it  would  be  for  us 
if  his  nerves  had  gone  for  good.  Another  cup?  Was  the  last 
one  right?" 

"My  position  is  peculiar.  (Yes,  the  tea  was  all  right.)  I 
find  myself  requested  to  be  reasonable,  and  to  embark  on  a 
career  of  reasonableness  by  considering  the  substantial  advantages 
to  my  daughter  and  her  husband  of  the  disappearance  of  his 
nervous  system.  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  I  wish  you  wouldn't!  Do  be  serious.  .  .  ."  The  Pro- 
fessor looked  at  her  reflectively  as  he  drank  the  cup  of  tea,  and 
it  seemed  to  dawn  on  him  slowly  that  his  daughter  was  serious. 
The  fact  is,  Tishy  was  very  serious  indeed,  and  was  longing  for 
sympathy  over  a  matter  for  great  elation.  She  and  Julius  had 
been  purposely  playing  continuously  for  long  hours  to  test  the 
apparent  suspension  or  cessation  of  his  nervous  affection,  and 
had  not  so  far  seen  a  sign  of  a  return ;  but  they  were  dreadfully 
afraid  of  counting  their  chickens  in  advance. 


558  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"I  noticed  the  other  evening" — the  Professor  has  surrendered, 
and  become  serious — "that  Julius  wasn't  any  the  worse,  and 
he  had  played  a  long  time.  What  should  you  do?"  Tishy 
looked  inquiringly.  "Well,  I  mean  what  steps  could  be  taken 
if  it  were  .  .  .  ?" 

"If  we  could  trust  to  it?  Oh,  no  difficulty  at  all!  Any 
number  of  engagements  directly." 

"It  would  please  your  mother."  Tishy  cannot  help  a  passing 
thought  on  the  oddity  of  her  parents'  relations  to  one  another. 
Even  though  he  spoke  of  the  Dragon  as  a  connexion  of  his 
daughter  he  was  but  little  concerned  with,  the  first  thought  that 
crossed  his  mind  was  a  sort  of  satisfaction  under  protest  that  she 
would  have  something  to  be  pleased  about.  Tishy  wondered 
whether  she  and  Julius  would  end  up  like  that.  Of  course  they 
wouldn't!  What  pity  people's  parents  were  so  unreasonable! 

"Yes;  mamma  wouldn't  be  at  all  sorry.  Fiddlers  are  not 
Baronets,  but  anything  is  better  than  haberdashing.  I'm  not 
ashamed  of  it,  you  know."  She  had  subjected  herself  gratu- 
itously to  her  own  suspicion  that  she  might  be,  and  resented  it. 

Her  father  looked  at  her  with  an  amused  face;  looked  down 
at  these  social  fads  of  poor  humanity  from  the  height  of  his 
Olympus.  If  he  knew  am'thing  about  the  Unionist  Home  Ruler's 
aspirations  for  Laetitia,  he  said  nothing.  Then  he  asked  a  natural 
question — what  was  the  little  galvanic  battery  ?  Tishy  gave  her 
account  of  it,  but  before  she  had  done  the  Professor  was  think- 
ing about  Sabines  or  Lucanians.  The  fact  is  that  Tishy  was 
never  at  her  best  with  her  father.  She  was  always  so  anxious 
to  please  him  that  she  tumbled  over  her  own  anxiety,  and  in 
this  present  case  didn't  tell  her  story  as  well  as  she  might  have 
done.  He  began  considering  how  he  could  get  back  to  the 
shreds  of  Bopsius,  if  any  were  left,  and  looked  at  his  watch. 

"Well,  that  was  very  funny — very  funny!"  said  he  absently. 
"Now,  don't  forget  the  heroic  rescue  before  you  go." 

Tishy  perceived  the  delicate  hint,  and  picked  up  the  paper 
with  "I  declare  I  was  forgetting  all  about  it!"  But  she  had 
scarcely  cast  her  eyes  on  it  when  she  gave  a  cry.  "Oh,  papa, 
papa;  it's  Sally!  Oh  dear!"  And  then:  "Oh  dear,  oh  dear! 
I  can  hardly  see  to  make  it  out.  But  I'm  sure  she's  all  right ! 
They  say  so."  And  kept  on  trying  to  read.  Her  father  did 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  559 

what  was,  under  the  circumstances,  the  best  thing  to  do — took 
the  paper  from  her,  and  as  she  sank  back  with  a  beating  heart 
and  flushed  face  on  the  chair  she  had  just  risen  from  read  the 
paragraph  to  her  as  follows : 

"HEROIC  RESCUE  FROM  DROWNING  AT  ST.  SENNANS-ON-SEA. 
— Early  this  morning,  as  Mr.  Algernon  Fenwick,  of  Shepherd's 
Bush,  at  present  on  a  visit  at  the  old  town,  was  walking  on  the 
pier-end,  at  the  point  where  there  is  no  rail  or  rope  for  the 
security  of  the  public,  his  foot  slipped,  and  he  was  precipitated 
into  the  sea,  a  height  of  at  least  ten  feet.  Not  being  a  swimmer, 
his  life  was  for  some  minutes  in  the  greatest  danger;  but  for- 
tunately for  him  his  stepdaughter,  Miss  Rosalind  Nightingale, 
whose  daring  and  brilliant  feats  in  swimming  have  been  for 
some  weeks  past  the  admiration  and  envy  of  all  the  visitors 
to  the  bathing  quarter  of  this  most  attractive  of  south-coast 
watering-places,  was  close  at  hand,  and  without  a  moment's  hesi- 
tation plunged  in  to  his  recue.  Encumbered  as  she  was  by  cloth- 
ing, she  was  nevertheless  able  to  keep  Mr.  Fenwick  above  water, 
and  ultimately  to  reach  a  life-buoy  that  was  thrown  from  the 
pier.  Unfortunately,  having  established  Mr.  Fenwick  in  a^posi- 
tion  of  safety,  she  thought  her  best  course  would  be  to  return 
to  the  pier.  She  was  unable  in  the  end  to  reach  it,  and  her 
strength  giving  way,  she  was  picked  up,  after  an  immersion  of 
more  than  twenty  minutes,  by  the  boats  that  put  off  from  the 
shore.  It  will  readily  be  imagined  that  a  scene  of  great  excite- 
ment ensued,  and  that  a  period  of  most  painful  anxiety  followed, 
for  it  was  not  till  nearly  four  hours  afterwards  that,  thanks  to 
the  skill  and  assiduity  of  Dr.  Fergus  Maccoll,  of  22A,  Albion 
Crescent,  assisted  by  Dr.  Vereker,  of  London,  the  young  lady 
showed  signs  of  life.  We  are  happy  to  say  that  the  latest  bulle- 
tins appear  to  point  to  a  speedy  and  complete  recovery,  with  no 
worse  consequences  than  a  bad  fright.  We  understand  that  the 
expediency  of  placing  a  proper  railing  at  all  dangerous  points 
on  the  pier  is  being  made  the  subject  of  a  numerously  signed 
petition  to  the  Town  Council." 

"That  seems  all  right,"  said  the  Professor.  And  he  said 
nothing  further,  but  remained  rubbing  his  shaved  surface  in  a 
sort  of  compromising  way — a  way  that  invited  or  permitted 
exception  to  be  taken  to  his  remark. 


560  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

"All  right?  Yes,  but — oh,  papa,  do  think  what  might  have 
happened !  They  might  both  have  been  drowned." 

"But  they  weren't !" 

"Of  course  they  weren't !    But  they  might  have  been." 

"Well,  it  would  have  proved  that  people  are  best  away  from 
the  seaside.  Not  that  any  further  proof  is  necessary.  Now, 
good-bye,  my  dear;  I  must  get  back  to  my  work." 

That  afternoon  Julius  Bradshaw  went  on  a  business  mission 
to  Cornhill,  and  was  detained  in  the  city  till  past  five  o'clock. 
It  was  then  too  late  to  return  to  the  office,  as  six  was  the  closing 
hour;  so  he  decided  on  the  Twopenny  Tube  to  Lancaster  Gate, 
the  nearest  point  to  home.  There  was  a  great  shouting  of 
evening  papers  round  the  opening  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth 
at  the  corner  of  the  Bank,  and  Julius's  attention  was  caught  by 
an  unearthly  boy  with  a  strange  accent. 

"  'Mail  and  Echo,'  third  edition,  all  the  latest  news  for  a 
'apeny.  Fullest  partic'lars  in  my  copies.  Alderman  froze  to 
death  on  the  Halps.  Shocking  neglect  of  twins.  'Oxton  man 
biles  his  third  wife  alive.  Cricket  this  day — Surrey  going  strong. 
More  about  heroic  rescue  from  drowning  at  St.  Senna's.  Full 
and  ack'rate  partic'lars  in  my  copies  only.  Catch  hold!  .  .  ." 
Julius  caught  hold,  and  thought  the  boy  amusing.  Conversa- 
tion followed,  during  cash  settlements. 

"Who's  been  heroically  rescued  ?" 

"Friend  of  mine — young  lady — fished  her  governor  out — got 
drownded  over  it  herself,  and  was  brought  to.  'Mail'  a  'apeny; 
torkin'  a  penny  extra !  Another  'apeny."  Julius  acquiesced,  but 
felt  entitled  to  more  talking. 

"Where  was  it?" 

"St.  Senna's,  where  they  make  the  lectury — black  stuff.  .  .  . 
Yes,  it  was  a  friend  o'  mine,  mister,  so  I  tell  you,  and  no  lies! 
Miss  Rosalind  Nightingale.  I  see  her  in  the  fog  round  Picca- 
dilly way.  .  .  .  No,  no  lies  at  all!  Told  me  her  name  of  her 
own  accord,  and  went  indoors."  Julius  would  have  tried  to  get 
to  the  bottom  of  this  if  he  had  not  been  so  taken  aback  by  it, 
even  at  the  cost  of  more  pence  for  conversation ;  but  by  the  time 
he  had  found  that  his  informant  had  certainly  read  the  para- 
graph, or  at  least  mastered  Sally's  name  right,  the  boy  had 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  661 

vanished.  Of  course,  he  was  the  boy  with  the  gap  in  his  teeth 
that  she  had  seen  in  the  fog  when  Colonel  Lund  was  dying. 
We  can  only  hope  that  his  shrewdness  and  prudence  in  worldly 
matters  have  since  brought  him  the  success  they  deserve,  as  his 
disappearance  was  final. 

Even  the  Twopenny  Tube  was  too  slow  for  Julius  Bradshaw, 
so  mad  was  he  with  impatience  to  get  to  Georgiana  Terrace. 
When  he  got  there,  and  went  upstairs  two  steps  at  a  time,  and 
"I  say,  Tishy  dearest,  look  at  this!"  on  his  lips,  he  was  met 
half-way  by  his  young  wife,  also  extending  a  newspaper,  and 
"Paggy,  just  fancy  what's  happened!  Look  at  this!" 

They  were  so  wild  with  excitement  that  they  refused  food — 
at  least,  when  it  took  the  form  of  second  helpings — and  when 
the  banquet  was  over  La?titia  could  do  nothing  but  walk  con- 
tinually about  the  room  with  gleaming  eyes  and  a  flushed  face 
waiting  furiously  for  the  post;  for  she  was  sure  it  would  bring 
her  a  letter  from  Sally  or  her  mother.  And  she  was  right,  for 
the  rush  to  the  street  door  that  followed  the  postman's  knock 
resulted  firstly  in  denunciations  of  an  intransitive  letter-box 
nobody  but  a  fool  would  ever  have  tried  to  stuff  all  those  into, 
and  secondly  in  a  pounce  by  La?titia  on  Sally's  own  handwriting. 

"You  may  just  as  well  read  it  upstairs  comfortably,  Tish," 
says  Julius,  meanly  affecting  stoicism  now  that  it  is  perfectly 
clear — for  the  arrival  of  the  letter  practically  shows  it — that 
nobody  is  incapacitated  by  the  accident.  "Come  along  up !" 

"All  right !"  says  his  wife.  "Why,  mine's  written  in  pencil ! 
Who's  yours  from?" 

"I  haven't  opened  it  yet.  Come  along.  Don't  be  a  goose!" 
This  was  a  little  cheap  stoicism,  worth  deferring  satisfaction  of 
curiosity  three  minutes  for. 

"Whose  handwriting  is  it?"  She  goes  on  devouring,  intensely 
absorbed,  though  she  speaks. 

"It  looks  like  the  doctor's." 

"Of  course!    You'll  see  directly.  .  .  .    All  right,  I'm  coming!" 

Take  your  last  look  at  the  Julius  Bradshaws,  as  they  settle 
down  with  animated  faces  to  serious  perusal  of  their  letters. 
They  may  just  as  well  drink  their  coffee,  though,  and  Julius  will 
presently  light  his  cigar  for  anything  we  know  to  the  contrary; 
but  we  shall  not  see  it,  for  when  we  have  transcribed  the  two 


562  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

letters  they  are  reading  we  shall  lay  down  our  pen,  and  then,  if 
you  want  to  know  any  more  about  the  people  in  this  story,  you 
must  inquire  of  the  originals,  all  of  whom  are  still  living  except 
Dr.  Vereker's  mother,  who  died  last  year,  we  believe.  Here  are 
the  letters: 

"MY  DEAEEST  TlSHT, 

"I  have  a  piece  of  news  to  tell  that  will  be  a  great  surprise  to 
you.  I  am  engaged  to  Conrad  Vereker.  Perhaps,  though,  I 
oughtn't  to  say  as  much  as  that,  because  it  hasn't  gone  any  farther 
at  present  than  me  promising  not  to  marry  any  one  else,  and  as  far 
as  I  can  see  I  might  have  promised  any  man  that. 

"Now,  don't  write  and  say  you  expected  it  all  along,  because  I 
shan't  believe  you. 

"Of  course,  tell  anybody  you  like — only  I  hope  they'll  all  say 
that's  no  concern  of  theirs.  I  should  be  so  much  obliged  to  them. 
Besides,  so  very  little  has  transpired  to  go  by  that  I  can't  see 
exactly  what  they  could  either  congratulate  or  twit  about.  Being 
engaged  is  so  very  shadowy.  Do  you  remember  our  dancing- 
mistress  at  school,  who  had  been  engaged  seven  years  to  a  dancing- 
master,  and  then  they  broke  it  off  by  mutual  consent,  and  she 
married  a  Creole?  And  they'd  saved  up  enough  for  a  school  of 
their  own  all  the  time!  However,  as  long  as  it's  distinctly  un- 
derstood there's  to  be  no  marrying  at  present,  I  don't  think  the 
arrangement  a  bad  one.  Of  course,  you'll  understand  I  mean 
other  girls,  and  the  sort  of  men  they  get  engaged  to.  With  Prosy 
it's  different;  one  knows  where  one  is.  Only  I  shouldn't  consider 
it  honourable  to  jilt  Prosy,  even  for  the  sake  of  remaining  single. 
You  see  what  I  mean. 

"The  reason  of  pencil  (don't  be  alarmed!)  is  that  I  am  writing 
this  in  bed,  having  been  too  long  in  the  water.  It's  to  please 
Prosy,  because  my  System  has  had  a  shake.  I  am  feeling  very 
queer  still,  and  can't  control  my  thumb  to  write.  I  must  tell 
you  about  it,  or  you'll  get  the  story  somewhere  else  and  be 
frightened. 

"It  was  all  Jeremiah's  fault,  and  I  really  can't  think  what  he 
was  doing.  He  admits  that  he  was  seedy,  and  had  had  a  bad 
night.  Anyhow,  it  was  like  this:  I  followed  him  down  to  the 
pier  very  early  before  breakfast,  and  you  remember  where  the 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  563 

man  was  fishing  and  caught  nothing  that  day?  Well,  what  does 
Jeremiah  do  but  just  walk  plump  over  the  edge.  I  had  all  but 
got  to  him,  by  good  luck,  and  of  course  I  went  straight  for  him 
and  caught  him  before  he  sank.  I  induced  him  not  to  kick  and 
flounder,  and  got  him  inside  a  life-belt  they  threw  from  the  pier, 
and  then  I  settled  to  leave  him  alone  and  swim  to  the  steps, 
because  you've  no  idea  how  I  felt  my  clothes,  and  it  would  have 
been  all  right,  only  a  horrible  heavy  petticoat  got  loose  and 
demoralised  me.  I  don't  know  how  it  happened,  but  I  got  all 
wrong  somehow,  and  a  breaker  caught  me.  Don't  get  drowned, 
Tishy;  or,  if  you  do,  don't  be  revived  again!  I  don't  know  which 
is  worst,  but  I  think  reviving.  I  can't  write  about  it.  I'll  tell 
you  when  I  come  back. 

"They  won't  tell  me  how  long  I  was  coming  to,  but  it  must 
have  been  much  longer  than  I  thought,  when  one  comes  to  think 
of  it.  Only  I  can't  tell,  because  when  poor  dear  Prosy  had  got 
me  to  * — down  at  Lloyd's  Coffeehouse,  where  old  Simon  sits  all 
day — and  I  had  been  wrapped  up  in  what  I  heard  a  Scotchman 
call  'weel-warmed  blawnkets,'  and  brought  home  in  a  closed  fly 
from  Padlock's  livery  stables,  I  went  off  sound  asleep  with  my 
fingers  and  toes  tingling,  and  never  knew  the  time  nor  anything. 
(Continuation  bit.)  This  is  being  written,  to  tell  you  the  truth, 
in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning,  in  secrecy  with  a  guttering 
candle.  It  seems  to  have  been  really  quite  a  terrible  alarm  to 
poor  darling  mother  and  Jeremiah,  and  much  about  the  same  to 
my  medical  adviser,  who  resuscitated  me  on  Marshall  Hall's 
system,  followed  by  Silvester's,  and  finally  opened  a  vein.  And 
there  was  I  alive  all  the  time,  and  not  grateful  to  Prosy  at  all, 
I  can  tell  you,  for  bringing  me  to.  I  have  requested  not  to  be 
brought  to  next  time.  The  oddity  of  it  all  was  indescribable. 
And  there,  now  I  come  to  think  of  it,  I've  never  so  much  as  seen 
the  Octopus  since  Prosy  and  I  got  engaged.  I  shall  have  to  go 
round  as  soon  as  I'm  up.  (Later  continuation  bit — after  break- 
fast.) Do  you  know,  it  makes  me  quite  miserable  to  think  what 
an  anxiety  I've  been  to  all  of  them!  Mother  and  J.  can't  take 
their  eyes  off  me,  and  look  quite  wasted  and  resigned.  And  poor 
dear  Prosy!  How  ever  shall  I  make  it  up  to  him?  Do  you 

*  Part  of  a  verb  to  get,  to,  or  bring  to.    Not  very  intelligible  ! 


564  SOMEHOW  GOOD 

know,  as  soon  as  it  was  known  I  was  to,*  the  dear  fellow  actually 
tumbled  down  insensible!     I  had  no  idea  of  the  turn-out  there's 
been  until  just  now,  when  mother  and  Jeremiah  confessed  up. 
Just  fancy  it!    Now  I  must  shut  up  to  catch  the  post. 
"Your  ever  affect,  friend, 

"SALLY." 
"MY  DEAE  BEADSHAW, 

"I  am  so  very  much  afraid  you  and  your  wife  may  be  alarmed 
by  hearing  of  the  events  of  this  morning — possibly  by  a  press- 
paragraph,  for  these  things  get  about — that  I  think  it  best  to 
send  you  a  line  to  say  that,  though  we  have  all  had  a  terrible  time 
of  anxiety,  no  further  disastrous  consequences  need  be  anticipated. 
Briefly,  the  affair  may  be  stated  thus: 

"Fenwick  and  Miss  Nightingale  were  on  the  pier  early  this 
morning,  and  from  some  unexplained  false  step  F.  fell  from  the 
lower  stage  into  the  water.  Miss  N.  immediately  plunged  in  to 
his  rescue,  and  brought  him  in  safety  to  a  life-buoy  that  was 
thrown  from  the  pier.  It  seemed  that  she  then  started  to  swim 
back,  being  satisfied  of  his  safety  till  other  help  came,  but  got 
entangled  with  her  clothes  and  went  under.  She  was  brought 
ashore  insensible,  and  remained  so  nearly  four  hours.  For  a  long 
time  I  was  almost  without  hope,  but  we  persevered  against  every 
discouragement,  with  complete  final  success.  I  am  a  good  deal 
more  afraid  now  of  the  effect  of  the  shock  on  Mrs.  Fenwick  and 
her  husband  than  for  anything  that  may  happen  to  Miss  N.,  whose 
buoyancy  of  constitution  is  most  remarkable.  You  will  guess 
that  I  had  rather  a  rough  time  (the  news  came  rather  suddenly 
to  me),  and  all  the  more  (but  I  know  you  will  be  glad  to  hear 
this)  that  Miss  N.  and  your  humble  servant  had  only  just  entered 
on  an  engagement  to  be  married  at  some  date  hereafter  not 
specified.  I  am  ashamed  to  say  I  showed  weakness  (but  not  till 
I  was  sure  the  lungs  were  acting  naturally),  and  had  to  be  revived 
with  stimulants!  I  am  all  right  now,  and,  do  you  know,  I  really 
believe  my  mother  will  be  all  the  better  for  it;  for  when  she  heard 
what  had  happened,  she  actually  got  up  and  ran — yes,  ran — to 
Lloyd's  Coffeehouse  (you  remember  it?),  where  I  was  just  coming 
round,  and  had  the  satisfaction  of  telling  her  the  news.  I  cannot 
help  suspecting  that  her  case  may  have  been  wrongly  diagnosed, 

*  See  note,  p.  563. 


SOMEHOW  GOOD  565 

and  that  the  splanchnic  ganglion  and  solar  plexus  are  really  the 
eeat  of  the  evil.     If  so,  the  treatment  has  been  entirely  at  fault. 

"I  shall  most  likely  be  back  to-morrow,  so  keep  your  congrats. 
for  me,  old  chap.  No  time  for  a  letter.  Love  from  us  all  to 
yourself  and  Mrs.  J.  B. 

"Yours  ever, 

"CONRAD  VEREKEB. 

"P.S. — I  reopen  this  (which  I  wrote  late  last  night)  to  say 
that  Miss  N.,  so  far  from  having  acquired  a  horror  of  the  water 
(as  is  usual  in  such  cases),  talks  of  'swimming  over  the  ground' 
if  the  weather  clears.  I  fear  she  is  incorrigible." 


THE   END 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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